


aim and ignite

by philthestone



Series: nursery 'verse [13]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: New Republic Era - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Gen, IT'S FINALLY HERE ......, ITS BEEN SO LONG ... SO MANY MOONS OF TOIL AND SWEAT .... ITS HERE FOLKS ..., JACEN SOLO VS THE WORLD, Thanks, everyone is full of love and han and leia are Good Parents and theyre A FAMILY and no one goes evil, this is the Peak of the nursery verse universe okay aight so we all agree
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-12
Updated: 2016-06-12
Packaged: 2018-06-09 21:24:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6923929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/philthestone/pseuds/philthestone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jacen Solo is eight years old when he decides to save the galaxy.   </p><p>“You’re both kooked,” comes Nik’s muffled, sleepy voice from somewhere amidst the pile of pillows on the other side of their bedroom. “The galaxy has like a zillion planets. No one c’n help ‘em <em>all</em>.”</p><p>“Don’t listen to him,” says Jaina, patting his arm wisely. “<em>I</em> think it’s a wizard plan.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	aim and ignite

**Author's Note:**

> IT IS TIME.
> 
> anyway, thank you to all you lovely folks who have stuck with me through this past year while I wrote The Big Fic of nursery verse. your encouragement means a lot to me, and this - in all its 22k glory - would never have been completed without you.
> 
> extensive notes at the end; title is from fun.; and reviews give butterflies wings and fuel my star-wars-loving soul for the next million years.

He’s standing in front of thousands of beings and his arms are positioned stiffly at his sides, elbows locked as he places his hands on the podium in front of him. The senate hall is suddenly much, much bigger than it’s ever been before, the domed ceiling so far up above him that he could lie and say it’s like it almost isn’t there. The sheer number of hovering podiums surrounding him is making his fingers tingle uncomfortably.

Mom’s voice is playing on repeat in his head, low and melodic and familiar: _The trick is to not let them know you’re nervous_.

He’s not nervous. Not exactly. He’s spent years working towards a Something that has finally turned out to be this, years of righteous indignation and self-doubt and scraped knees and bruised knuckles and hoarse voice and bright laughter, years of listening and learning and watching as his parents painted him a story of what once was ( _what can come to be_ ).

And sithin’ hells, but he’s not even an official part of the senate (and never will be, he hopes – “Good thing too,” says Dad, squeezing his shoulder, “’cause you can make a helluva lot more difference when you don’t have to play by their rules,” and Mom rolls her eyes from the other side of the room but tells him, “Listen to your father, Jasa,” and “I guess there might be a head on his shoulders after all –”)

But here he is, about to open his mouth.

And he is

( _did you know that forty-eight percent of inhabited Outer Rim territories still have active slave trade markets and –_ )

standing, making a point to hold his head high like Mom does and gripping the podium,

( _even within Mid Rim worlds, the frequency of blackmarket sentient trafficking is disturbingly high, and_ –)

dreaming of sand and sweat and blood and two generations of suffering,

( _respectfully, I’d ask if the assembly knew that the statutes in the Galactic Charter of Sentient Rights only address the needs and rights of two out of every five humanoid sentients, particularly with regards to market niches for species-specific enslavement, and –_ )

of _happiness_ , of his mother’s smile and the ever-bright glimmer in his uncle’s eye and the way people’s Force signatures spin and sing and fuse together when trust is built, the way injustice has the tendency to shatter the hope in people’s eyes and make them forget who they are ( _were, once wanted to be_ ) and his tunic is pressed and new and _not_ Jedi robes, though he carries his saber on him at all times, because this is _him_ speaking.

Him and the voices of thousands of other sentients across the galaxy.

He swallows, wetting his lips and letting himself open up to the Force, letting it pulsate through each breath he takes, beat with every thump of his heart, and he is

( _to say nothing of the treatment and laws regarding non-humans, their inclusion into the GCSR being barely present even today; a remnant of a xenophobic government that was, indeed, good gentlebeings, rooted in another xenophobic system of government, so_ –)

shining

( _I implore you not to limit your – everyone’s – pursuit of justice by remaining loyal to a glorified illusion from our past that was riddled with a corruption that was the foundation of Imperial rule, and_ –)

terrified

( _consider how it feels to be owned, to have your every move controlled by another sentient, consider the feeling of a tracking chip buried deep into your neck and the knowledge that your mother, brother, father, sister, or child may be ripped away from you or beaten to death at any given moment_ –)

ready to speak, ready to let the words dance across his tongue and

( _to be dehumanized for no reason other than the rotting morality of other beings, to be treated as objects, your own will coming secondary to that of your masters_ –)

feeling, feeling his uncle’s warm glow and his mother’s strength and his father’s pride

( _and consider, please, gentlebeings, that turning a blind eye to the enslavement of beings across the galaxy is no better than participating the act of enslavement itself, so_ –)

and Jaya and Nik, on the far end of the senate hall tucked into the back of one of the podiums with Tenel Ka standing beaming by their side and Nik is grinning like he knows _exactly_ how pissed of half the assembly is going to be and Jaya shoots him a look, like

( _I beg you not to view this as an opportunity to further your own agendas, and take into account the magnitude of the injustices still being committed across the galaxy, still protected by our own persistent shortcomings and nearsightedness, and_ –)

she knows how scared he is (as always) and how determined he is (that’s a given) and how he’s going to get worked up halfway through the speech if he’s not careful and _don’t worry, Jasa, ‘cause if you do you know we’ve all got your back._

 _Slavery is a bit of a sore spot for our family,_ Uncle Luke had once said, smiling crookedly in that way of his where his mouth will quirk to the side and his eyes dance and you get the distinct impression that under the easy, joking rhythm of the words, he is very, very serious.

( _With all due respect, helping people is not something you do just so that you can pat yourself on the back._ )

 _Silvertongued,_ says a voice in his head.

He takes a deep breath.

**

When Jacen is seven, he hears Uncle Luke speak Taal for the first time. It’s different, kind of funny sounding at first, like the sounds are all coming out from the base of Uncle Luke’s throat instead of over his tongue.

He realizes quickly that he’s heard it spoken before, when Uncle Luke whispered words into their hair or shared jokes with Mom, and for some reason it feels private, even more private than Corellis is.

“It is,” Uncle Luke tells him, and Jaya and Nik, hiding under the blankets one night when Mom and Dad aren’t at home and he’s visiting from Yavin. “It’s super special. My Aunt Beru taught it to me, and I’ve taught bits of it to your Mom. Do you wanna learn it?”

Two years later, Jacen will hear Grandfather’s ghost laugh and drop a word that Jacen’s heard, that he knows, teasing and playful.

Grandfather’s Taal is much more refined than Jacen’s is, natural and easy-coming, like it’s part of him; even more than Alderaani or Corellis or Basic are parts of Jacen. And when he uses the words, little undercurrents of warmth flash in his Force presence.

“You know,” Uncle Luke tells them that evening, still swathed in the blankets with a bowl of crisps tucked under his arm and there are crumbs all over the covers but shhh, they’ll wash them before Mom gets back, “that your Grandfather was a slave. And he grew up on Tatooine just like me.”

Jacen knows that Uncle Luke is what people call “a freeborn son of a slave”. It’s what happens when someone lives on a planet with no Moms and Dads to tell them how to behave properly so they think it’s totally okay to own other people, except then the person that was owned got un-owned so then their kids were free.

Freedom is a funny idea.

Uncle Luke says that it doesn’t mean you can just do whatever you want, but that’s it’s a feeling, a responsibility. You’re free when you don’t let scary stuff control you, when you love people with your whole self, or when you listen to the living Force.

Dad says that freedom is a privilege, and that you have to take it very seriously. Not everyone’s got it, and not everyone can tell they don’t have it. Sometimes, it might slip out through your fingers and suddenly one day you realize that you’re not free at all, ‘cause you haven’t stopped to listen to what your head is telling you is Right. It’s when you’re not thinking for yourself anymore that’s dangerous, says Dad, and Jacen should always, always think for himself, even when it’s Mom and Dad talking to him. “See,” says Dad, “if I tell you about something and you think about it and don’t agree, or don’t understand, what you gotta do is come and ask me about it again, and then we’ll sit and talk more. Or ask Uncle Luke, or Mom. But don’t think that just cause I said it, it’s a hundred percent right. Got it?”

Mom says that freedom is something that each and every single being in the whole wide galaxy deserves – it’s theirs to have even if they’re not a good person, because they're still a _person_ , and no one else is allowed to take that away from them. And no one can _own_ someone else, because that’s just plain wrong -- the _ultimate_ way of stripping away personhood, says Mom.

Jacen agrees. Anyone who decided people could be owned is _dumb_. ‘Course no one can own another person. They’ll just tell ‘em to squick off (and Mom raises her eyebrows at Dad when Jacen uses that particular expression) and walk away – except then Jaya reminds him that sometimes the dummies doing to owning make sure to hurt whoever’s trying to get un-owned, so they can’t really do that, can they?

Jacen thinks that that’s the most awful thing he’s ever heard.

“Hey,” says Uncle Luke. “Chin up. It’s getting better. Slavery was really big under the Empire, but since you three were born, there’s a whole lot of laws in place that make it really, really hard for people to do bad stuff like that.”

“So,” says Jaya, “no more Bad Guys are trying to go around owning people or anything?”

(She emphasizes “owning”, Jacen knows, because they still can’t believe that that’s _actually_ a thing.)

Uncle Luke hesitates, and Jacen knows that they still do – Bad Guys, that is. Bad Guys still go around doing awful no-good things like putting tracking chips in someone else’s neck and bossing them around, and Uncle Luke has probably seen it happen first hand.

“Well,” he starts, tugging lightly on Nik’s toes and causing him to giggle. “When you three get older, you can help beat some sense into all the Bad Guys still doing it? How’s that?”

Jacen wonders if it has to do with Uncle Luke teaching them Taal – if the sudden flare of excitement in his tummy at the thought that he can actually do something to make the Bad Guys stop is because he knows that once upon a time Grandfather was actually owned by some other sentient who thought that that was okay.

(That, once upon a time, a Dark Knight was controlled by an Evil Wizard and was only set free through the love of his son, a simple Farmboy.)

He wonders if knowing where they came from and practicing the different vowels in his mouth adds to the determination he has, to one day make sure that a language like that isn’t kept secret, that it isn’t called the language of freedom simply because it’s the only thing the slaves have to hold on to that hasn’t been forced on them by their owners. He listens to Uncle Luke say words like _rosh_ and _sekhoq_ and _shalh’aam_ , thinks of desert heat and the ground tea leaves in Uncle Luke’s kitchen and the smell of cinnar spices in the bright sun.

Once, Mom sits down with them when Uncle Luke is telling them stories about the words Aunt Beru taught him. She adds a word of her own.

“Shmi,” she says. “It means _my name_.” The smiles Mom gives when they’re talking about Tatooine and Grandfather and Taal are always a little off, Jacen knows, but this time her smile is full of warmth. Like the desert.

“It was your great grandmother’s,” says Uncle Luke. “Shmi Skywalker.”

Jacen repeats the name, soft and almost reverent. Mom is still smiling at Uncle Luke, and when he smiles back, Jacen can feel a ripple of calm through the Force.

He says the name again and hopes that his Taal isn’t as badly accented as he thinks.

It’s normal, in their house, to speak three languages mostly-fluently and completely understand another and know bits and pieces of a fifth. They pretend it’s normal for everyone – that it’s not because of their sort-of-crazy really-really-huge twenty-people-and-counting extended family that’s been patchworked together from every corner of the galaxy before they were even born.

Jacen thinks it’s absolutely wizard. He loves Aunt Mara’s Coruscanti accent, loves listening to Chewie’s growls and Dad and Mister Wedge’s low epithets in Corellis and the way Uncle Luke’ll make a face when he says things in Huttese. He loves the Alderaani script on the datafiles Mom’s got from ages and ages ago, the ones that she keeps very close and safe and shows to him and Jaya and Nik because they need to know about that part of their heritage; loves the single, Noobian hymn that Mom knows, taught to her by Grandpapa and Grandmama Organa’s friend Miss Sabe when she was a little, little girl.

He can picture Mom like crystal water in his head, saying in her Politician Voice that people think differently in different languages so sometimes you use one for something and the other for something else, always remember that and it’s important to be fluent in each and no, you may not ask your father to teach you Rodian swear words until you’re at _least_ eighteen. Dad’s always telling them that languages are like tools, a different word for each different problem you’ve got. Like using a wrench for one thing and a ‘spanner for another, and sometimes both’ll work but then you can just use the one you’re most comfortable with.

Mom has flimsis stuck all over the kitchen ever since they’re really little and still learning and some of the flimsis are still around – all sorts of words in three different languages written over them in her tidy script and Dad’s messy scrawl, Basic and Corellis and Alderaani all on one piece of sticky flimsiplast.

“Language is important,” she keeps saying, and Dad doesn’t say it in so many words, but that’s never stopped him from teaching them old spacer songs, either, or whispering _min larel valles_ to them with a wink and a kiss on the forehead each in the evenings before bed.

(Dad knows loads and loads and languages, but most of ‘em are just bits and pieces, things he’s picked up “over the years”. He can understand Shriiywook and Aqualish and speak Basic and Rodian and Huttese and a good chunk of Alderaani, too. When he’s at home, he’ll use Olys Corellis, and Jacen always wonders at the softness of Dad’s voice when he speaks his native tongue, saying more than just a simple _I love you_.

Mom’s arsenal of languages is a lot smaller, but Dad always jokes that what she lacks in language, she has in eloquence, and no one’s gonna listen to _his_ awful Basic when they can have Mom at the podium instead. “You gotta learn to be articulate like your Mom,” Dad’s always saying, and Jacen wonders if people take you more seriously if you are and why some people can be articulate better than others – or were they just never taught, like Mom teaches them?)

Alderaani is his favorite, rolling vowels and singsong syllables off of his tongue. It’s a dying language, Mom explains quietly one evening when he’s still young, young enough to have an early-ish bedtime and she’s there to pull his blankets up to his chin. Jaya is curled up beside him and it’s Nik who asks if Alderaani is gonna be extincted one day (“ _extinct_ , Nik,” groans Jaya), and Mom smiles and tells them _not if I’ve got anything to do about it_. He holds on to that and tries to speak it as much as he can, using the words as tools to get through problems, like Dad taught him, supporting his train of thought in Basic with Mom’s favorite Alderaanian expressions, calling the fascinating creatures he finds each day by Alderaanian names.

Olys Corellis is different; more private. Dad doesn’t speak it much outside the house, but at home he’s always dropping little words, like it’s their secret thing that no one else knows even that that’s _silly_ ‘cause Mister Wedge can speak Corellis just fine. Where Alderaani is important and special, where it has responsibility that comes with it, Corellis makes Jacen think of Jaya’s laughter and Dad’s winks and Mom’s warm smiles and Nik’s funny faces.

(They can understand Shryiiwook from as far back as Jacen can possibly remember, figuring out the sounds and pitches even before they could speak Basic. It hurts to make the sounds all right, though, and Nik tries, once, but Mom has to feed him crushed ice for a whole day until his throat feels better. Chewie thinks it’s hilarious and Dad laughs so hard he has to sit down, but Nik makes funny faces like he’s trying to say something but he doesn’t wanna hurt his throat. Jacen tells him later that it’s okay and Chewie probably will think him a mighty warrior forever just for making the effort.

“You’re practically a war veteran,” agrees Jaya seriously, reaching over to dump berry juice over Nik’s bowl of ice. “It was very heroic.”

“I hate you both,” Nik mumbles around his mouthful of sticky, homemade freezie, and Jacen and Jaya break down giggling right there at the kitchen table.)

But Taal … of all of them, Taal is the _most_ special, the most private. There is something about it that begs secrecy, as though to speak it anywhere but among themselves reduces its power. Jacen thinks again about what Uncle Luke said, about the awful people who think they can own others, of his Aunt and his Grandmother and the twins suns burning bright in the desert and of their heritage – _theirs_ , his and Jaya’s and Nik’s and even Mom’s.

( _Even Mom’s_ , because Jacen can see the strain in her smile when Uncle Luke tells them that Taal was his father’s native tongue.)

He thinks that one day, people shouldn’t have to cling to something so tightly, hold something so precious so fiercely close to their hearts lest it be taken from them, too. He thinks that maybe people should be free to speak and sing and yell out to the clouds happily, like he sometimes does when he’s extra excited, grabbing Jaya’s hand and hollering up at the wide expanse of Yavin’s blueblue sky.

Free.

Free to love, free to think, free to _speak_.

The next time he sees Grandfather, he asks him to quiz him on his pronunciation.

**

Jacen is almost eight years old when he sees Grandfather properly for the first time.

It’s generally accepted fact in their family, extended and immediate and otherwise, that really weird, unexplainable things will happen all the time at various hours in the day and mostly it’s completely normal and even if you wanted to be weirded out you unexplainably find yourself totally not, so the fact that a ghost appears in their bedroom maybe a full half hour after Bedtime is not unnerving in the least.

“So, you want a bedtime story,” says Grandfather, perched on the end of Nik’s bed, looking mostly solid but also a little glow-y and ghost-y and Jacen wonders why he finds he’s not a little more perturbed.

Even so, of the three of them, Jaina seems to be taking their Grandfather’s sudden appearance the most in her stride – which is, all things considered, not surprising at all. She crosses her arms over her chest and says, “Auntie Winter can’t tell decent bedtime stories,” which of course is true.

“Well,” says Grandfather, tapping his chin with a gloved finger. “I don’t have many good bedtime stories. But I _can_ tell jokes.”

Nik tries and fails not to look totally amazed by everything and Jacen immediately sits up taller and Jaina, ever pragmatic (sort of), says, “Okay, but if they’re anything like Uncle Luke’s jokes …” and Grandfather laughs out loud.

“I can assure you,” he says, “that my jokes are _exponentially_ better than your Uncle’s.”

(Jacen looks at Nik and Nik looks at Jaya and Jaya says, “Well, okay then,” and all three of them hope that Mom and Dad are okay wherever they are doing Important But Probably Dangerous New Republic Stuff, called away at the last second and this time it really couldn’t be delegated (even though Jacen’s still not sure what delegated even means) and he can hear Jaya’s thoughts from the other side of the bed, thinking _I wish we were on Yavin with Uncle Luke_ but mostly they’re okay because Grandfather’s _here_ now, telling jokes.)

Later, he sits in the dark and stares at the ceiling.

“Jaya, are you awake?” (Though he knows very well that she is.)

His sister squirms around on the bed beside him so that they’re face to face.

“Sleep is for weaklings,” she says solemnly, and Jacen nods.

“Do you think that what Grandfather said is true?”

Jaya makes a face. “You mean that joke about the droid and the Biss who fell into a sewer?”

“No, silly,” says Jacen. “The other thing. About helping people.”

“Oh,” says his sister, whispering. “ _That_.”

“Do people really not help other people?”

Jaya sticks her chin out and frowns. “Well. Not everyone, I’m guessing.”

“Right,” says Jacen, biting his lip and turning to face the ceiling again.

“’Cause if they did,” continues Jaya, “Mom and Dad wouldn’t have jobs. Right?”

“Is that what Mom and Dad do?”

“I think so,” says Jaya, squirming a little more under the blankets. The night air on Coruscant has turned muggy and humid. Jacen thinks that it’s pretty wizard if your whole job is just helping other sentients, and that maybe the fact that Mom and Dad are away right now is a little more okay if that’s what it is they’re doing.

Helping people, that is.

“But what about the people they can’t help? Can they help everyone?” Jacen is sitting up now, bare feet tucking under his big overlarge used-to-be-Mom’s-and-now-it’s-his sleeping shirt and clenching his fingers in the blankets reflexively. It suddenly seems terribly, horribly unfair if not everyone who needs help is being helped – like, _so_ unfair, as unfair as that time Jaya and him got in trouble for eating biscuits before dinner even though they hadn’t and the person who’d eaten the biscuits’d been Nik except they got a time-out anyway and Jaya was very, _very_ grumpy –

Well, thinks Jacen, it would be _really_ unfair.

“I dunno,” admits his sister, as he continues to squeeze the bedsheets anxiously. She makes a face into her pajama-clad arm, which is pillowing her chin. “That’s kind of a lousy thought, though.”

There’s a pause, in which he sticks his bottom lip out and frowns intently at the wall, and Jaya traces patterns on the bedsheets and pulls faces at him.

“Jasa,” she whispers after a moment. “You’re like a million parsecs away.”

“Am not.”

“Are _too._ ”

“Am _not_.”

“Fine,” says Jaya, uncharacteristically letting him have the last word. Jacen grins, just a little bit. “Watcha thinkin’ about?”

(What _is_ he thinking about? The words _what if_ dance on the tip of his tongue, straining to get out.)

“What if,” says Jacen slowly, twisting his fingers into the soft synthsilk sheets, “what if we helped Mom and Dad. ‘Cause they can’t help everyone, even if they wanted to, so we’ll be their backup help.”

“So, like,” says Jaya thoughtfully, fingers on her right hand coming up to tap her chin, “we’ll be helping _everyone_?”

“Everyone,” confirms Jacen, finally letting go of the blankets and crossing his arms with finality. “The whole galaxy.”

“And Uncle Luke’s helping too, right?” Jaya is serious now, sitting up as well, a flutter of excitement rippling through their bond as her green eyes shimmer awake and alert in the dark.

“Uncle Luke,” says Jacen, “Can be Rogue Leader. But just for the helping thing. Cause he’s Uncle Luke.”

Jaya nods, ready to relinquish her esteemed rank of Rogue Leader to their Uncle for this particular situation. Obviously, Jacen notes, she sees how very Important and Grave the circumstances are.

“So that’s settled then.” And Jaya’s cheerful grin is mirrored by himself, sitting in the darkened bedroom in her patterned pajamas and mussed up braids, legs crossed in front of her like she’s gonna start meditating like Uncle Luke does sometimes, the tiny gold hoops in her ears glinting in the halflight from the transparisteel window. Jacen is about to grab her hand and insist that they shake on it, so that it’s Formal and Official and Proper, a secret handshake that is privy only to the two of them and Nik and maybe the potted plant in the hallway once saw them do it but _she_ promised not to tell.

“You’re both kooked,” comes Nik’s muffled, sleepy voice from somewhere amidst the pile of pillows on the other side of their bedroom. “The galaxy has like a zillion planets. No one c’n help ‘em _all_.”

**

He’s only eight and a half and Mom is pale as a sheet and sitting the three of them down on the bench outside the medicenter, brushing back his hair as Auntie Winter stands there beside them, holding Nik’s hand while Mom tells them that Uncle Luke’s hurt, hurt pretty bad, but he’ll be okay in a bit and they have to promise to be really, really good until Mom and Dad can figure things out and make sure everything is alright and can they do that?

Jaya, looking kind of pale herself, presses her hands into her lap and tells Mom that yes, they can, and Jacen knows that she takes it seriously ‘cause even though it’s only by two minutes, she’s the eldest.

Jacen’s not sure what’s happened to Uncle Luke. Only that Mom is trying very hard not to be angry with her brother, the way Dad sounds all mad when him or Jaya or Nik get hurt, to hide how scared he really is. Jacen figures it means Mom cares a lot, which is of course already a Known Fact. And he wonders if he should be a little mad too; seeing Mom all scared like that is not fun and it’s sort of Uncle Luke’s fault and Jacen decides that when the medidroids let them in, he’ll scold Uncle Luke for not being _considerate_ of Mom’s feelings (a phrase he’s only recently learned).

The medicenter is kind of cold and all white and clean, nothing at all like Uncle Luke’s small house on Yavin with the cluttered front room and the warm stone walls and the sheets smelling like earth – even less like their busy apartment on Coruscant, with the splashes of rich, fancy colour in the carpets and couches and the pieces of Jaya’s spare tinkering bits strewn all over the floor and Nik’s toy fighter ships cluttering up the kitchen table and Mom’s robe hanging from the chair and Dad’s boots on two different sides of the room, lying haphazard and upside down. And it’s not got any birds or critters either, which is a definite downer.

Jacen wonders if he can bring the tiny little munk lizard he found wriggling under the potted plant in the hallway for Uncle Luke to see. He figures that might make him feel a whole lot better a whole lot quicker than any of these bright white lights and cold rooms will.

Dad comes out of Uncle Luke’s room later that night and lifts Nik up onto his lap and hands Jacen and Jaya a cup of hot chocolate to share (from the dispensary downstairs – not nearly as good as the one Uncle Luke makes) before telling them that’s it’s going to be totally, completely, one hundred percent okay and that Uncle Luke is fine, just a little bruised up.

“Was it Bad Guys?” whispers Nik into the front of Dad’s shirt, and Dad sighs and gives Nik a kiss on his forehead and reaches over to squeeze Jacen’s knee, and Jacen can feel Jaya trying valiantly to keep herself from crying beside him.

Uncle Luke never gets hurt. Uncle Luke is _Uncle Luke_.

“That’s not true,” says Uncle Luke with a small laugh when Jacen tells him this later, sitting beside him in his bed the next morning. He looks pretty okay to Jacen, except for the small bruise on his cheek and the tired look in his eyes, like he’s missed his bedtime for the past three weeks straight. Nik fell asleep at the foot of the bed and Jaya volunteered to go get them all more hot chocolate from the dispensary downstairs with Auntie Winter. Jacen’s crawled up onto the bed beside his uncle and has his head up against Uncle Luke’s shoulder.

“Well,” says Jacen stubbornly, “it should be.”

“Jasa,” repeats Uncle Luke quietly. “You know that’s not true.”

Jacen is quiet for a moment, laying against the soft, sterile bedding and the jut of Uncle Luke’s collar bone and solid, shimmering yellow presence in the Force.

“Were you scared?” he whispers finally.

Uncle Luke nods, squeezing Jacen’s shoulder and pulling him closer against him.

“At one point, yes.” What he doesn’t say is why, though Jacen has a pretty good guess it has to do with Jaya’s smiling green eyes and the way Nik’s breath comes out in little puffs at the foot of the bed and Mom’s pale face when she took them to the medicenter and Dad’s tight, warm hugs.

 _But you did it anyway_ , Jacen wants to say, even though right then he doesn’t know what the it is (‘cause he’d overheard Mom telling Dad they were too young to know) and he’s not sure he entirely wants to, but all he knows is that doing something despite the fact that you’re scared means something important.

“Sometimes,” says Uncle Luke into the crown of Jacen’s hair, even though Jacen didn’t say anything and they should both probably be sleeping, “sometimes you have to do the right thing even though you’re scared. You don’t do it ‘cause it’s easy. You do it ‘cause it’s _right_.”

Jacen nods and holds on a little tighter (and wonders, not for the first time, what, exactly, the Right Thing is).

**

Sometimes he can’t help but think that Mom and Jaya’s fights are stupid.

He doesn’t say this out loud (except for once, and that time Jaya didn’t speak to him for a whole day), and usually has to stand by and keep his mouth shut so he doesn’t make things worse, even though all he wants to do is to try to explain that they’re yelling about the same thing.

He knows Jaya’s always worried that Mom expects more of her than she can provide. Even though she says she doesn’t care, he knows. He just _does_ – they’re twins, aren’t they? And he also knows that Mom loves Jaya very, very much, even if sometimes she doesn’t realize Jaya just doesn’t work the same way Mom does.

“Hey.”

“Go _‘way_ , Jasa.”

She’s curled up on the canopy above the balcony, looking out into the skylanes, with her knees tucked up against her chest and her newly-shorn hair spread out unevenly around her head.

Jacen lies down beside her and looks up at the sky. It’s blue, with clouds rolling in funny shapes and patterns across the sky because the weather generator on Coruscant is always changing things up even though it’s supposed to be consistent but Mom says it’s never been fixed properly since the time of the Old Republic because no one’s found the credits or time.

They’re all feeling lousy in general, Jacen knows. Mom’s always looking tired and pale and snapping at everyone and Nik’s crying more easily than he usually does and Dad’s laughing less and Jaya’s gone and cut off half her hair.

Herself.

With Dad’s old vibroblade, which they found in his discarded boot, so now Mom’s mad at both Jaya _and_ Dad.

Generally, when Mom gets angry, it means that, a) someone did something exceptionally stupid, b) someone almost got hurt Really Badly and the forces of evil are about to quiver under Mom’s icy glare (Uncle Luke’s words, not his), or, c) she’s had a really long, yucky day at work and is just plain old _tired._

Usually, if it’s option c), it’s not really anyone’s fault, because tired Mom gets angry at everything from Dad whistling to Jacen’s pets escaping their room and wreaking havoc on the house, so, really, Jacen thinks that since obviously this time it’s option c), it’ll blow over pretty quickly and everything’ll be fine.

Only, he’s not a hundred percent Super Sure if what Jaya did mightn’t also maybe a little bit fall under option a), because actually now that he thinks about it vibroblades are kind of dangerous and also _Jaya’s hair_ , so there’s that.

“Mom hates me,” he hears his sister mumble into the ground under them, really small and quiet-like, and most everyone only sees Jaya when she’s loud and bouncy (and bossy, but she punched him in the shoulder the last time he accused her of any such affliction, so Jacen decides to keep his thoughts to himself) but Jacen knows that Jaya’s actually a lot more sensitive than she lets on. Which means that saying silly things like “Mom hates me” is totally uncalled for and that it is time for Drastic Measures, like sitting up with appropriate amounts of gravitas and rummaging in his pockets for five-month-old yeesh-I-don’t-even-know-if-this-is-edible-anymore hard candies that they probably were given forever ago by someone like Captain Karrde or Aunt Mara.

“Mom does _not_ hate you, _tohnto_. She’s just … stressed.”

Jaya doesn’t look up even though he just called her “silly” in Alderaani and she hates that, so he pokes her. And then drops two wrapped candies on her head.

“Ow! Jasa!”

“You looked like you needed some candy?”

“Those things are like a million years old!”

“Nah, only five months.” He unwraps one of the candies and pops it into his mouth, sucking on it experimentally. “Um.”

“You’re probably gonna get candy poisoning and _die_ ,” Jaya tells the canopy.

“Maybe more than five months. Maybe _six_.”

“Jasa, go away.”

“Nope. Not possible.”

“Go _away_.”

He stretches his legs out in front of him and cracks the knuckles in his hands, because he saw that in a holovid once and it looked super adult, and then he flops back down on his back beside Jaya and looks back up at the sky. There’s a cloud shaped like a mewsk right over their heads.

“Mom doesn’t hate you, Jaya.”

_She sure sounded like it._

“Sounding” isn’t the same thing as “actually being”.

That doesn’t make any sense, tohnto.

“Ugh,” says Jacen out loud. “You know what I mean. Mom was probably just worried that you’d have hurt yourself with the vibroblade – which, like, thinking back, that was kinda a bad call, Jaya – and also, option C, ‘cause she’s super stressed.”

Jaya shifts slightly on the ground, turning her head over (but only her head) to look at him, confused. “Option C?”

“Like, on the list,” Jacen explains. “Of Reasons Why Mom’s Mad. She’s really tired and stressed ‘cause of yucky people at work so she gets mad at everyone. And also,” he adds, when Jaya doesn’t say anything, “option A, which is what the vibroblade thing was about, ‘cause she was all scared you’d get hurt because you did something maybesortof stupid?”

Jaya kicks him.

“ _Ow!”_

And then rolls back over in the grass.

But, after a moment: “I hate Coruscant.”

“Yeah,” says Jacen, thinking of how not-tired Mom is whenever they visit Yavin IV with Uncle Luke or even Kashyyyk with Chewie and Malla, and how the weather’s always changing here so it messes with his head and his animal friends, and how Mom and Dad were arguing really loudly the other night, the kind of arguing which could almost be fighting – which doesn’t really happen that much but when it does it’s Kind Of Scary, capitalized for _oh my Force I have no idea what to do when it happens and maybe I should just sneak out of the hallway and pretend I never heard anything_.

Also capitalized for Importance.

“I really hate Coruscant,” repeats Jaya. “I feel like it’s getting under my skin, or something. And the stupid doors here _slide_ shut, so you can’t even slam them when you’re mad.”

Jacen considers this. It’s a fair point.

“I know,” he decides after a while. “But Mom doesn’t hate you. I think she was just upset ‘cause she thought your hair was real pretty when it was longer.”

“Yeah, well, _I_ don’t like long hair.”

“I know,” he says again.

Jaya is quiet for a moment. “But she’s okay now?”

“I don’t know,” says Jacen, remembering how Mom had sunk down in her chair and pressed her fingers into her forehead and looked completely miserable. “Maybe she just needs a hug.”

“I think we both do,” Jaya mutters into the ground.

“I,” says Jacen, “am a good hugger.”

Jaya rolls over and looks at him. Jacen looks back.

“I’m not coming back inside.”

“I know.”

“I wish we didn’t live here.”

“I know.”

(He knows even before she actually says it out loud, because they’re Force-sensitive twins and so things like that are just _known_ , mostly always, but he tells her he does, anyway.)

She pauses, frowns at him, then drops her head back against the ground and looks up at the sky. Jacen lays back down with her.

“There’s a cloud up there shaped like a mewsk,” he says into the silence.

“Jasa?”

“Yup.”

“Why’re you lying down with me?”

Jacen kicks his feet up into the air and starts making bicycle motions just for something to do. “’Cause it’s the coolest thing to do ever and I’m being cool with you?”

He can hear Jaya’s reluctant giggle through the Force even though it doesn’t actually escape out loud and he grins, kicking his legs faster.

 _Thanks,_ tohnto.

 _No problem, big sister_.

(Mom hugs Jaina really, really tight when they finally come back in – hugs her and strokes her short hair and says she’s sorry for yelling and just please, please never use sharp knives like that again without asking permission and that she knows everyone’s a little upset over – nothing in particular, it seems like, but when, the next week, Dad pokes his head into their bedroom and tickles them all awake and says, “Alright, who wants to move to Yavin?” Jacen thinks that maybe Mom won’t get angry as much, because at least one of the options is just being plain old kicked in the butt.)

**

He’s nine years old, the synthsilk of his nice fancy dress shirt feels uncomfortably warm, and Jacen doesn’t think any of them even fully know what “uncultured Corellian reprobate” _means_.

“Reprobate” is a pretty big word. Even Mom hasn’t used a word that big yet, as far as Jacen can remember.

Only, the tone of the voice was cruel and mocking and just plain horrid, and he’d heard things like that before and he’s ( _they’re,_ because Jaya’s standing sort-of- tall and stubborn right there next to him) only nine but he can still sense the flicker in Dad’s sense, can still see the anger in his eyes when those words come out (have come out, before, it’s happened _before_ and Dad wasn’t there this time but he’s been there _more than once_ ). They curled snake-like in the air, _stinging_ and Dad's eyes flick down to catch Jacen’s and he presses his lips together; frustrated.

Jacen isn’t sure what’s worst – the way the words were said, or the feeling he gets, like Dad’s used to hearing them.

“– _graceful_ behavior!” Mom’s voice is strained and shrill from behind the door. “I don’t know what made them do it, but I would assume that my children should know how utterly unacceptable it is to pull a stunt like that in public –”

“Leia –”

“Perhaps I can calm things down outside,” comes Madame Mothma’s voice, cutting smoothly over their parents. (Jacen can swear he hears the sliver of a laugh under her soothing tone – after all, Minister Horm’s face _was_ pretty funny looking – but you can never be sure with Madame Mothma.) “I’m sure it will be forgotten in a minute.”

“Yes,” repeats Mom, her voice going from shrill to tired so suddenly that Jacen feels his stomach sink abruptly. Jaina twitches beside him, her fingers twisting in the hem of her fancy dress.

“See?” says Dad after a minute. “No harm done. We can –”

“They need to learn when that sort of thing is acceptable and when it just really is not the place.” Mom’s voice climbs in pitch again, and Nik grimaces from behind Jaina’s arm. “I’m sure they meant no harm, Han, but the middle of a fundraiser hosted by the idiot they pranked is not the right time! Everything is on eggshells enough as it is and now I have to deal with a whole room full of –”

“Sweetheart, look –”

“ _Don’t_ defend them! Pulling something like that at such an important function? Han, any other day I would have let it go, but –”

“I’m not defending them! Sweetheart, listen to me, I’ll talk to the kids. But c’mon, Leia, you know them, they don’t usually pull stuff like this unless they’re provoked –”

“ _Provoked?_ What in _stars’_ name would a Minister of the New Republic have done to provoke them?”

Dad’s voice drops and Jacen hears a half-hearted giggle escape Jaya’s mouth when Mom’s voice sounds again: “ _Han!_ ”

“Look, I’ll talk to ‘em, just calm –”

“I’m calm. I am very calm, I’m so incredibly calm that I’m going to _very calmly_ let you handle your children while I do damage control, so please, if you could do that now!”

“Leia –”

There’s the sound of a door slamming. Jaya swallows, and Nik mutters, “Uh oh,” from his position behind Jacen.

_Dad’s gonna be real mad, Jasa._

Jacen feels his chin stick out a little of its own accord when Dad steps into the room and crosses his arms.

“Thirty seconds,” he says, voice low and brooking no argument. “Go.”

No one says anything. Nik looks down determinedly at his feet, inspecting a nonexistent spec on the lavishly-carpeted floor. Dad takes a deep breath.

“Look,” he says. “I don’t know _how_ you got that frog into Minister Horm’s caf without anyone realizing, and while I’m sure it’s a helluva story, I don’t care. What I wanna know is why.”

“Mommy’s really mad, isn’t she?” asks Nik in a small voice.

“I’ve gotta admit, Anakin, I’m pretty mad too.”

He catches the flicker in his sister’s sense a split second before she opens her mouth, but he’s too late.

“It was my idea –” blurts Jaya, and Jacen whirls around to glare at her immediately, chest expanding with indignation because _no no no no no don’t you dare_ –

“Was not! Was _not_ , Jaya, don’t listen to her Dad –”

“Well you weren’t _saying_ anything –”

“That doesn’t mean you’ve gotta take the _whole blame_ , dummy, that’s even less fair –”

“Oh, don’t even _start_ , Jasa –”

“Enough!”

All three of them are smart enough to shut up when Dad sounds the way he does, right then, and Jacen can feel Jaya’s sense start beside him, can see her lower lip trembling. Dad doesn’t get mad often. Not like this.

“Daddy,” starts Jaya, her voice strained, but Dad cuts her off and kneels down to face them, eye to eye.

_It was worth it._

I don’t know, they’re really –

Mom always says –

I know what Mom says, but we didn’t think about this –

Oh, Force, Jasa, what if we messed up?

“I need you to tell me why you thought it was okay to do.”

“Well, maybe we _were_ bad,” mutters Nik, the undercurrent of mutiny in his voice setting off alarm bells in Jacen’s head. “’Cause now Lorn’s lost and he might dry up and _die_ without water.”

Jaya almost giggles, hand jumping up to cover her mouth because this is a serious moment and you just can’t _giggle_ in Serious Moments. It comes out like a half-yelp, restrained and held back. Nik looks like he’s not sure if he wants to actually behave or say something else, likely to do with their poor, caf-soaked frog Lorn, so Jacen decides to be a supportive older brother and chime in.

“We were awful, awful kids,” he agrees. “Everyone knows that frogs can’t survive in caf. We’re sorry, Dad.”

There’s a moment, a half-second, where Dad’s mouth twitches and Jacen swears he’d almost laughed back out in the reception hall, right before he recognized the frog and his eyes widened and he frowned at the three of them, half-hiding behind Jaina’s chair and trying very, very hard to muffle their giggles as Minister Horm shrieked and somehow managed to catapult his enormous mass out of his creaking chair.

(Which was, in itself, an impressive feat – though no less hilarious for it. If Mom hadn’t been in complete shock due to the general frogginess of the table, she probably would’a laughed, too – Jacen’s sure of it.)

(As it happened, though, she didn’t.

Oh, _blaster bolts_.)

Jacen can feel his siblings’ anxiety rolling off of them in waves, mirroring his own. On impulse, he almost reaches out and grabs their hands, but decides against it, cause they really shouldn’t be feeling badly about this because it was totally and completely _provoked_ and _called_ for and maybe even _necessary_ (all large-ish words that Mom uses a lot and Jacen likes to think he knows a lot about). He tries taking a deep breath and presses his lips together.

It wasn’t meant to do any lasting damage – not really – and maybe it wasn’t the smartest way of retaliating against dismissive, snobbish remarks from a fat lump of a man’s person, anyway. But it sure felt right when they were doing it and doesn’t Mom always say they’re supposed to stand up to bullies?

Space it all -- Mom and Dad spend so much time protecting him and Jaya and Nik that they don’t have anyone to protect them, and so, obviously, by reason Jacen oughta help with that –

_Right?_

(Only suddenly Jacen feels all of his admirable reasoning stick in his throat because Dad’s one of the strongest, bravest, bestest people Jacen knows and he can’t even begin to _imagine_ why Minister Horm would say anything like that but – but he can’t tell Dad, can’t risk the flash of resignation behind his eyes like he’s seen so many times before but hasn’t understood enough to do anything about.)

Jaina’s face is doing an admirable job of not crumpling in on itself, but Nik’s eyes have already filled with tears. Jacen is just trying his hardest to avoid Dad’s eyes; the loose thread hanging from Dad’s collar is particularly interesting.

Dad’s lips press even thinner than before and he lets out a tiny little frustrated breath of air, like he’s not sure what he should be saying.

Finally: “C’mon, guys. You know doing that kinda thing’ll get you in trouble.”

Silence. It continues, stretches out and twists through the room, roiling with conflict and hurt and confusion. It’s so heavy in the air that Jacen is surprised they haven’t all choked on it yet.

“Mom’s already really stressed and busy, and now –” Dad continues, makes a face, eyebrows drawing in and looking at each of them directly – “She’s mad ‘cause _now,_ everyone out there in that room is gonna make this whole conference fifty times harder for her for something she didn’t even –”

“He was asking for it!” bursts out Jaina.

_Oh, blaster bolts._

“Jaina –”

“That lousy, no-good, mean old – old –”

“ _Lump!_ ” crows Nik from behind him, his fingers tugging down on Jacen’s sleeves as he lets loose the exclamation, big eyes too-bright and cheeks flushed, Force presence trembling sharply. “Big ole lumpy pile of meanness!”

“ _Anakin_ ,” warns Dad, but Jacen feels the words slip out of his mouth before he can stop himself.

“You didn’t hear what he said, Dad, we couldn’t’ve just –”

“It was the _worst_ –”

“Even Madame Mothma –”

“I’ve been listening to the garbage that comes out of Threkin Horm’s mouth for the last thirteen years,” says Dad sharply, cutting them off; and underneath the keen, unspoken reprimand Jacen feels like there’s something off, something different from Dad’s usual easy, teasing tone, like something heavy that’s sitting on his words that he can’t quite get rid of.

And that’s the whole point.

(“Sometimes people are unfair and cruel,” Mom’s voice is saying as she perches herself on the edge of him and Jaya’s bed, smiling softly the way she always does, like she’s about to make them feel a whole lot better about something. First experiences with bullies are always a shock, Jacen’s heard, but it was nice to have Jaya at his side, her small fists curling with indignation. “But that doesn’t mean you have to stand back and let them. Mean people aren’t going to change if you just let them be mean, right?”

“Right,” agrees Jaya vehemently, and Jacen tugs at the hems of his pajama bottoms and nods in agreement, wondering what you’d do in a situation like that, because what if you were accidentally mean to the people being mean in the first place, and –)

“But he was talking about _you!_ ” Jaya yells, her voice finally breaking, and maybe probably if Mom were in the room they’d get into trouble for yelling at Dad because that’s misbehaving, that’s rude and unacceptable and breaking the Rules and _nothing_ is fixed by screaming at anyone and Dad really hasn’t done anything to deserve yelling anyway. But Mom isn’t in the room, and Jaya yells and Dad goes very, very still, and her next words are unexpectedly quiet, like she’s making up for yelling a second before. “I don’t understand,” Jaya says, voice impossibly small. “Why doesn’t he like you?”

And just like that: Dad’s eyebrows crease upwards, his eyes widening. Just like that, Jacen feels him falter in the Force, and, just like that, his shoulders stiffen, hands grabbing tightly at his knees. Jacen looks up from his inspection of the thread hanging off of Dad’s collar to meet his eyes, and suddenly he feels his own eyes prickle and his throat tighten up and even though he’s a grown up nine-year-old he really, really wants to cry; everything is upside down and topsy turvy and Anakin’s sobbing quietly from behind Jaya and Jaya is glaring at the carpet and Dad suddenly looks so, so angry that Jacen feels his breath catch in his throat.

“Please, Dad,” he starts, the prickle in his eyes getting hotter. “Please don’t be mad, it’s just Mom always says we’re supposed to stand up to bullies and you weren’t there so we thought –”

“I’m not,” says Dad, cutting across him, and his voice sounds funny and strangled and the steel in his eyes melts away just as quickly as it appears, leaving them soft and green once more. “I – I’m not – oh, gods, you three, come here.” (And then, more softly,) “Anakin, kiddo, come here.”

Dad’s arms are warm and strong and long enough to hug all three of them at once and Jacen doesn’t think he’s even been hugged quite so tightly before. Their senses are muddled in the Force, feelings spinning and twisting and tangling together, flashing bright and dim allatonce. Nik presses his face against Dad’s shoulder and doesn’t stop crying until Jacen and Jaya pull away and Dad starts rocking gently on his knees, holding Nik to his chest.

“Shhh. Hey, shhh, baby boy, it’s okay. I’m not mad.”

Jaina sinks down onto the floor and sits with her legs drawn up to her chest. Dad’s looking at Jacen now, but he speaks to all of them.

“I’ll talk to Mom. It’s okay, I’ll talk to Mom. She’s not mad, Nikki, I promise.”

Nik nods into Dad’s shirt, small and jerky, and Jacen blinks back against his angry tears. Angry, because it’s unfair that people are allowed to talk about other people like that, because it’s unfair that his little brother is crying and it’s unfair that Dad sounded so tired of it all and it’s just _unfair_.

(Later, he will learn that the word is _unjust_ , and he will breathe deeply and reign in his anger, smooth his voice and calm his thoughts.)

( _Reprobate_ – unprincipled, immoral, _tramp_.

Jacen is well past the ignorant age of nine when he fully understands the meaning of the phrase _class difference._ )

**

“No,” he explains patiently, the third time over. Aunt Sola – or, well, Mom _tells_ them they’re supposed to call her “aunt”, even though she’s not really like their other Aunts and Jacen wonders why it felt so much more right calling Aunt Mara “aunt” that whole last year before she was even officially their aunt than it is calling Sola “aunt”, even though she’s the one who’s actually _related_ to them –

Aunt Sola smiles a lot and seems nice enough, but she just doesn’t seem to _understand._

“No, I can’t talk to them. I can feel them, though. What they’re feeling. Sometimes they can understand me, too.” He grins, despite himself. “It’s awesome.”

“Oh,” she says, giving him another of her smiles, and they’re really very nice and she seems very kind and lovely and sweet only Jacen catches Jaya’s eye from across the room, where she’s sitting at Mom’s feet listening to her and Uncle Luke talk to Cousin Pooja and feels her sigh through their bond. Jacen feels a tiny bit guilty about it, but he can relate. “I see. Do you own many pets, Jacen? You seem to be quiet fond of animals.”

There is a beat. Jacen gapes at her.

“What d’you mean?”

“Do you keep many of these pets?” Aunt Sola repeats gently, and Jacen frowns, even though he doesn’t know why.

It’s the first time he’s met Grandmother’s family, even though Grandfather will drop by out of the blue and visit and accidentally talk about Grandmother without even realizing how much he’s talking and sometimes it’s actually kind of annoying, and Mom’s been telling Uncle Luke for almost ever that they should really, really visit their relatives on Naboo.

(And now they’re almost eleven and finally Mom brought them with her, but for some reason everything feels _off_ and he’s not entirely sure why. Mom just feels uncomfortable and Dad looks _unbelievably_ out of place and Uncle Luke is smiling softly and gently like he always does when he’s not sure what to do but wants to be polite, and Jacen catches Jaya’s eye again and looks around the room, out the window, takes in this comfortable, normal house and the lush green trees outside and the overly polite, smiling voices that everyone is using and he feels that he’s not sure this really has anything to do with Grandmother at all.)

Aunt Sola is still looking at him expectantly.

“You can’t _own _another being, Aunt Sola,” he says, and wonders why she doesn’t already know this. “I’m just giving them a place to stay. They’re my friends.”__

**

He’s twelve when they fully realize the whos and hows and whats of The Story.

Well, maybe not _fully_. They’ve always known, Jacen thinks, been aware deep down who everyone was, how in school you learn about Battles Over Yavin and the Leaders of the Rebel Alliance and at home you learn about Farmboys and Princesses and Wise Old Men and Dark Knights. It shouldn’t even be that much of a shock, ‘cause Mom told them once that she and Dad decided to tell them The Story because they _needed_ to know, because sometimes everything about their family could be a little complicated and better hear it from them than from the history holos, right? One day, said Mom, running her fingers through Jacen’s hair, you might be facing Evil Wizards of your own, and what would you do then if you didn’t have the Farmboy’s example to follow?

( _As told by the Farmboy himself_ , added Uncle Luke, winking, ‘cause then they know all the places he messed up, too, and not just the Real Big Hero stuff that the holonews talks about.)

(Jaya had giggled and plopped herself into Uncle Luke’s lap: _you’re too goofy to be a Real Big Hero, Uncle Luke._ She wrinkled her nose. _Like in those holovids, where he’s got the crazy muscles and everything._

Uncle Luke had said, “Thank Force,” and Mom had laughed into her cup of caf.)

The thing is, they’re only just realizing that The Story left some bits out, and Jacen thinks that despite the fact that Mom explained this, that she sat them in the kitchen in their new house on Yavin three months after they’d moved and looked Very Serious, taking Jaya’s hand in her right palm and Jacen’s in her left and perching Nik in her lap – even though they _know_ –

Jacen wonders if the Dark Knight thought what he did was right. When he was doing it, that is. If the choices he made were right, in his head (like how that one time he and Jaya accidentally knocked over one of Mom’s art pieces and it broke into a whole lotta pieces and when Mom asked them what happened, they told her they didn’t know, and Mom told them later that it was worst of them to lie to her like that than it was to have ruined the art only, when they said what they did, Jacen doesn’t remember thinking that they were doing anything wrong).

Except, _did_ the Dark Knight choose to do what he did?

Jacen wonders this as he sits cross-legged outside of their room, feeling the waves of confusion and hurt emanating from his little brother. He and Jaya have spent as long as he can remember protecting Anakin from bullies, from cruel adults, from rotten no-good snot-faced mynoks who tried to tell him who he’s going to be, who he might become, who he _is_. And now they’re sitting outside their shared room and Nik’s sense is such a confused jumble of mismatched, contradictory feelings that it’s making Jacen’s head ache.

 _Genocide_.

The word is deceptively benign, rolling off Jacen’s tongue just like any other old word in the Basic vocabulary. Three syllables.

A whole group of sentients, _murdered_.

The ache in Jacen’s head has migrated to behind his eyes.

Dad looks very, very tired as he leans against the wall across from their room and hooks his thumbs into his belt loops.

“Are you gonna at least come down and eat?”

Jaya glares. Which is scary enough in itself, ‘cause Jaya lashing out at Dad is something that rarely ever happens.

“We’re not hungry.”

“And we’re not leaving Nik,” Jacen hears himself add, blinking stubbornly to banish the ache behind his eyes. (It doesn’t work.)

“No,” agrees Dad, his voice quiet. “I could bring food up?”

“We’re not really hungry, Dad,” Jacen repeats. Jaya crosses her arms and looks down at the floor in agreement.

“You haven’t eaten all day,” Dad tries again, scratching at the back of his neck, forehead creased. “It’s past dinnertime.”

Jacen frowns at the wall and Jaya picks at the carpet and they pretend like they can’t hear each other think, because listening to Jaya is just making his own thoughts more confused and he really really wants to yell and cry at someone and the only thing that’s holding him back is that Dad doesn’t really deserve it because it’s not _actually_ Dad’s fault.

Well, maybe a little. He didn’t tell them about this either, did he?

He looks back up to see Dad biting his lip (a habit Jacen knows he’s picked up from Mom, because Jacen’s picked it up too), and when he speaks next, he’s raised his voice, like he knows Nik’s listening on the other side of the door. “We can make flatcakes.”

“At dinnertime?” Jacen hears himself ask, the words slipping out more rough and soured than he expects. Dad shoots him a Look.

From his other side, Jaya makes an indistinct huffing sound.

“Dad –” she starts, but the door to the bedroom creaks behind her.

“Can – can we put the little purple berries in them?” says his brother’s voice, small and mumbled from the other side of the door, and Nik’s pretty quiet already but something about the softness of his voice makes the ache return to the back of Jacen’s eyes, sharp and hot.

Dad’s smiling, almost gently, hesitant, _relieved_ , like he was worried this was an unfixable Thing. Dad can fix most things, Jacen knows from experience, but those are usually just with machines and scraped knees and mean government people, and sometimes Mom’s failed attempts at cooking.

(This is different. Jacen isn’t even sure this needs fixing.)

( _It’s not a problem, dummy,_ sound Jaya’s thoughts, sharp and angry. _It’s a fact of life._

Shut up, Jacen thinks before he can help himself, and squeezes his eyes shut involuntarily. The ache is steadily getting worst, and now there’s something stuck in his throat, too.)

“Hey, Kiddo.”

“Hey, Dad.”

“Mom wants to talk to you.”

“I know.”

“If we make flatcakes, will you guys come downstairs?”

“That’s not –” starts Jaya, shooting a sharp look in the direction of Nik’s skinny frame, half-hidden behind the door, and back down to Jacen, who inhales sharply.

“ _Dad_ ,” he starts and his voice comes out croaky and surprises him and Dad sinks down to the carpeted floor and sits down in front of them, his long legs tucked up uncomfortably in front of him.

“I know it’s not going to change what he did.”

Jacen flinches, feels the sharp flare in Nik’s sense like he’s been struck, the simmer of hurt in Jaya on his other side. Dad’s eyes are darker green than he’s ever seen them, serious and not at all teasing and there’s an echo of something in them that Jacen’s not sure he wants to know about right now, like if this were a different situation and he wasn’t Dad he might start crying, which is scary enough as it is because Dad _never_ cries.

Jacen swallows against the lump in his throat.

“He – he killed –”

“A lot of people,” whispers Dad. “Yeah.”

“That’s why Mom always gets that funny look,” comes Nik’s voice again, and they all start to look up at him and Jacen thinks he’s never seen his little brother look so pale. “Right? When we talk about him.”

“It’s –” Dad sighs, big and heavy, like he’s holding up this huge, dragging weight, and scratches at his cheek before looking up at Nik again. “Yeah,” he says, quietly. “It’s complicated, but yeah.”

 _Complicated_.

(Their whole family, Jacen comes to learn, can be described using that word. It’s confusing and astoundingly obvious at the same time, messy and tangled but solid and steady, hurting but happy, so so _so_ happy.)

(They’re _happy_. Jacen knows this. Happiness is the sound of Uncle Luke’s humming and Jaina tripping over Nik’s socks in the hallway and how Mom’s face always looks so bright when Dad kisses her, even though kissing is kind of gross – how watching the flapping wings of the flitters crowding the sky in the mornings feels like, how Dad’s flatcakes taste when Nik puts the little berries in and Jaya makes the syrup.)

( _Right?_ )

**

He’s sitting on the edge of the table, like he’s not supposed to do because sitting on tables isn’t very polite but he does it anyway, and Mom is standing in front of him making tea and looking sad. It’s the type of sad that feels like it’s just always going to be there no matter how happy you are.

Jacen doesn’t know what to make of it.

It’s two days after they came down and made flatcakes (two days after Nik yelled that he never wanted to speak to Grandfather again and two days after Jacen held Jaya back to stop her from trying to hit a ghost even though everything felt so _wrong_ and two days after they’d found that article, wormed out of its innocuous little corner of the holonet because of Nik’s budding genius when it came to datapads and technology and _oh, Sith it_ ) and he accepts the hot mug of tea Mom hands him, puts the mug down firmly on the table before he can forget it’s hot and fresh and let it burn his lips.

“Jacen,” says Mom, putting her own mug down and coming forward to put her hands on either side of his face, cupping his cheeks. Her dark hair is pulled back in a braid and she’s just tall enough to be face to face with him when he sits on the table. There is a tightness around her eyes that he doesn’t think he’s ever really thought to look for before. “I need you to remember something.”

“Okay.”

She’s saying his name all full-syllables and adult-like, and Jacen takes a deep breath and feels Mom reach out to him through the Force, calming.

 _Shhh, sweetheart. It’s going to be okay_.

“Pinky-promise?”

“I promise, Mom.”

Her thumb brushes against his cheekbone, soft and gentle.

“Why do we forgive people, Jacen?”

“Why do we –” Jacen falters, rolls his lip between his teeth. “’Cause it’s the right thing to do?”

The pressure of Mom’s hands against his cheeks increases fractionally. “Does it help them?”

“I – I dunno.”

“I need you to think about something for me,” she repeats. “Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Just think about it. You don’t have to understand just yet.”

“Okay,” he says, third time but he can’t think of anything else; he's tracing the patterns of the shadows Mom’s eyelashes make against her cheeks with his eyes.

“Sometimes,” says Mom, smiling at him ( _sadly_ , Jacen thinks) “holding on to that hurt in your heart hurts you more than it hurts them.”

Jacen swallows.

“Is that why you – you forgave.” He steels himself. “Is that why you’re okay with Grandfather now?”

Mom kisses him on the forehead in answer. Jacen presses his nose into her neck and she lets him hug her tightly, perched there on the tabletop.

( _I want you to remember something, Jacen._ )

**

_An interlude: Tenel Ka, part the first._

“It’s a joke,” Jaina explains for him while he lies on his back in the springy forest grass on Yavin IV, just on the other side of the Temple. He’s grinning like a fool, proud of himself and barely stifling his giggles. “You’re supposed to laugh, Tenel Ka.”

“Ah,” says Tenel Ka, perched on the edge of a half-rotting log with her hands clasped neatly in her lap. Her dark red hair is pulled away from her face as it usually is, braided down behind her ears and playing backdrop to the glittering gold earrings looping through her earlobes and her tanned, olive skin. Where Jaina is slouched, leaning over in the grass, Tenel Ka’s posture is impeccable as always. “Aha. I see.”

“Cause the droid’s head fell off,” Jacen supplies, pushing himself up on his elbows so he can direct his encouraging grin at their friend. “He was laughing so hard it shook his wires loose and –”

“Don’t worry,” Jaya whispers loudly to Tenel Ka and rolling her eyes at Jacen. A small smirk tugs at her lips. “It was a lame joke.”

“Hey!” Jacen protests. But it’s pretty half-hearted, and he’s grinning again in a moment. Obviously, Tenel Ka might feel badly about not getting the joke, so Jaya’s making her feel better, because that’s the right thing to do.

It was really an _excellent_ joke, he knows.

“Anyway,” says Jaina, “pass me that wrench. We might be able to get this thing working again.”

“That hyperdrive is probably a relic from the _Clone Wars,_ Jaina,” groans Raynar, rolling his eyes dramatically. “Where’d your Dad even dig it _up_ from?”

On Jacen’s other side, Lowie whuffs irritably, and One Two Dee hurries to translate.

“Lowbacca states that –”

“Jeez, pal, have a little faith,” huffs his sister, dropping back onto her knees and squinting into the charred circuitry of the greasy, rusted hyperdrive. “And hand me the wrench, please.”

Jacen grins; usually, Lowie would be the first to voice his pessimistic opinion, but today Uncle Luke ( _Master Skywalker_ , Jaina’s voice reminds him) insisted that they take Raynar with them when they went adventuring so he wouldn’t be all alone (“I guess it’s the right thing to do,” Jaya had said with an air of a person on her way to the firing squad, while Jacen patted her consolingly on the back), and Raynar is pessimistic purely out of spite. Naturally, Lowie refuses to agree with him on principle.

Jacen blows a thick strand of his overlong dark hair out of his eyes and rolls back onto his stomach, focusing on the tiny, fluorescent green caterpillar making its way up one of the long blades of grass covering the forest floor. Caterpillars, Jacen thinks, are generally pretty wizard. He wishes he could take this one home with him, back to his and Jaya’s shared bedroom in the Temple and introduce him to Mort, the purple and red caterpillar Jacen found three weeks ago. He has a feeling they’ll get along famously, if this caterpillar’s determination to get to the top of the leaf is anything to go by.

(Kind of like Jacen’s determination to make Tenel Ka laugh at his jokes, she’s so awfully straight-faced all the time – but Jacen thinks morosely that the caterpillar’s probably having more luck than he is. Jaina’s swore they’ll do it one day, but then – for some weird funny reason that Jacen’s not been able to figure out yet, he gets the feeling that it’s more important to him than it is to his sister. And anyway, Tenel Ka’s smile is awful pretty, ‘specially for someone who looks so serious all the time.)

(But Jacen doesn’t tell anyone _that_.)

The caterpillar’s got miniscule little fuzz feelers all down its back and its face is double sided, like it has a face on its butt, too, which Jacen thinks is absolutely _excellent. And_ its feet are orange.

“I’m gonna name you Tip,” Jacen whispers to the caterpillar just as Jaya lets out a fervent “Blaster bolts!” behind him. Something makes a rather frightening banging sound as Jacen feels his sister’s shock ripple through their bond, and there’s the distinct sound of Raynar yelping, like he sat down on a spiny ragweed bush.

“I think you may have disengaged the wrong tube,” Tenel Ka is saying as Jacen scrambles to his knees and turns to assess the damage.

Jaina’s face is covered with old, sticky hyperdrive fluid, her bangs sticking up in the front. Lowie harruffs and Tenel Ka sighs with her mouth, like she’s more amused than annoyed, and Raynar groans again.

“Don’t _do_ that kind of thing, it scared me!”

“It wasn’t my fault!” says Jaya, wiping a hand at her face and smearing the fluid even further. Her chin is jutting out and her eyebrows are drawn down in a little half-scowl, and Jacen can feel her irritation, kept neatly at bay for a good chunk of the morning, buzzing furiously. “Toughen up a little, Raynar. It was just a little noise.”

Lowie nods in agreement; Tenel Ka leans forward to inspect the criminal fluid tube, her long red braids swinging down to frame her face.

“It does not seem too bad,” she decides. “The main power core is still intact.”

“One of the tubes just blew outta nowhere,” says Jaya, swiping at her face again and pushing herself down onto her belly to peer into the innards of the decrepit hyperdrive.

(Which, Jacen thinks privately, probably _is_ from the Clone Wars.)

( _Shut up_ , Jaya tells him.)

Jacen grins, scooting his way over to sit beside Jaya and pulling his legs in against his chest.

“You could almost say that your attempts –”

“Jacen Solo, don’t you _dare_ –”

“Blew up in your face,” he finishes with a flourish, snickering at Jaya’s disbelieving face, all covered in hyperdrive fluid with her cheeks flushed and her hair tangled.

“ _Bhesj_ ,” groans Jaina loudly, making a face at him. _Unbelievable_. The Corellis word makes Jacen grin. Lowie is laughing loudly to the side of the log and even Raynar is trying to school his grin into an annoyed expression, but Tenel Ka blinks at him expectantly.

“I do not understand,” she says.

For some reason, Jacen feels his face fall a little.

“It was a joke, Tenel Ka. It’s funny.”

“Ah,” she says for the second time that afternoon. “Aha. I see.”

Jacen huffs and slumps forward, pushing himself up off of the ground. “C’mon, Raynar. I can show you this caterpillar I just found if the hyperdrive is scaring you.”

_Tough luck, little brother._

_Whatever. I bet she’ll laugh next time._

“I wasn’t scared!” Raynar is protesting as Jacen tugs him off of the log and pulls him after himself towards the general direction of Tip the caterpillar. “I was just – just –”

“Maybe hyperdrives aren’t your thing,” says Jacen, patting Raynar’s shoulder. “But Tip’s pretty cool. He doesn’t make funny noises or spray engine stuff at you. He just crawls up leaves and eats.”

“That’s hardly my definition of _cool_ , Solo.”

_Don’t worry. I think her smile’s pretty too._

_Venga,_ thinks Jacen, rolling his eyes and scowling, turning away from Jaina and pretending his cheeks aren’t heating up. _Whatever you say, Jaya._

 _Cailhi’nu_ , she thinks back, responding to his Alderaani with more Corellis. _Loser. You’re giving up that easy?_

_Koccic sulng, Jaya._

_You shut up, guerfel._

_Stop calling me names in Corellis!_

(He can feel his sister’s laughter through the Force, bright and teasing.)

 _She’s_ gonna _laugh, silly. I promise._

Jacen sighs and kneels down on the ground, remembering how Uncle Luke always tells them to be nice to people even if they’re annoying. (The “even” is very important.)

“There,” he tells Raynar, pointing at the still-crawling Tip. He bets Tip would laugh at his joke, if he wasn’t a caterpillar. “Just be careful so you don’t scare him.”

**

_Another interlude: Tenel Ka, part the second._

“And she’s just so – so? Uptight? Like she’s always so proper and serious and she _never_ smiles, Mom, that’s got to be some kind of – of _medical condition_ – and, I just, I’m so tired of it, like does she think she’s better than me? Is it just me? Is it ‘cause suddenly, she’s the heir to the Hapan crown or whatever, she can just – be all princess-y when she never _used_ to be and this is so –”

Jacen stops and sucks in a breath. His mother’s shoulders are shaking ever so slightly.

“Mom,” he says, deadpan.

Mom looks up at him from where she’s preparing herb tea at the kitchen counter and arches her eyebrows, not even bothering to hide her smile.

“Yes dear?”

“You’re laughing at me,” he accuses, crossing his arms over his chest.

“I am not.”

Jacen winds his arms more tightly together, pressing them hard against each other in an effort to forget how wildly he was waving them about a moment ago because that was probably embarrassing and undignified, and frowns at her.

“You’re smiling. I’m being _serious_ , here.”

“Yes, I know Jasa, you’re ranting very seriously about how much you hate one of your closest friends.”

Jacen’s frown deepens. He doesn’t _hate_ Tenel Ka. She just – annoys him. A lot. All the time. _Now_ , as in, this is a very recent development and -- and, just. Ugh. Even though his stomach gets these butterflies every time she talks to him and sometimes he catches himself watching the way her red hair sweeps over her shoulder and the poise of her shoulders and the twinkle in her eye when she’s happy, but –

 _Ugh_. It’s annoying. _She’s_ annoying.

Anyway, she’s been ignoring him ever since Bast kissed him behind the Temple wall three weeks ago, which probably has to do with how much better than him she thinks she is, because she’s a princess, or whatever, and everything’s just a mess and if Jacen has to listen to Jaya clucking at him through their Force bond one more time he might just lose it.

 _Officially_.

(Jaya doesn’t like Bast much, so that might explain some of the holier-than-thou clucking, but that’s _her_ problem, Jacen thinks, all fifteen-year-old stubbornness; not his.)

(Also, Mom doesn’t actually know about Bast. Which is, also, _not_ his problem.)

“I don’t hate her,” Jacen says, finally, loosening his arms a little and glaring at the table. “She’s just weird and annoying.”

“Jasa,” says Mom, and there’s a note of reproach in her voice, in the stern set of her eyebrows.

Jacen’s frown deepens. He doesn’t say, _and she never laughs at my jokes_. He doesn’t say, _Mom, I miss her_.

“Sorry,” he mutters instead, rolling his eyes at the table. “She’s not annoying. She’s _royalty_.”

He wants to bite it back the moment it comes out of his mouth, because he can almost feel, tangibly, the inevitable, unamused arch of Mom’s eyebrow – but it doesn’t come.

“Mom!” he protests. “I told you not to laugh at me!”

“I’m sorry,” laughs his mother, not looking or sounding sorry at all, “Oh, sweetheart, I’m _sorry_ , it’s just – you – you remind me of someone I used to know.”

Jacen frowns, picking at the counter and thinking _thanks, great, wonderful chat we had here_ when Dad’s voice sounds from the other room.

“ _I heard that!”_

“Good!” Mom calls back without missing a beat. There’s still laughter in her voice, in the fine lines framing her big dark eyes – Jacen’s eyes too, he thinks. Mom’s eyebrow is raised delicately, her chin inclining slightly inwards; challenging him without so much as opening her mouth.

“Mom,” says Jacen.

“Jasa,” says Mom, the corners of her lips curling upwards slowly.

It’s maddeningly unhelpful, and he’s also really not having fun with the blush that’s crawling over his cheeks against his express permission, so he huffs a sigh in the general direction of the tea leaves on the counter in front of Mom and rolls his eyes.

“Ugh, fine. But I’m still not talking to her!”

 _Loser_ , says Jaya’s voice in his head.

_Oh, shut up._

**

“Okay,” he says, “but what about droids?”

“What about droids?” says Dad from under the dashboard, voice muffled.

“Couldn’t droids technically be considered slaves,” Jacen reiterates, passing the ‘spanner into Dad’s outstretched hand absently. His fingers pick at a loose thread on his trousers and he realizes he’s chewing on his lips again – a habit that really shouldn’t have lasted until the very mature and grown-up age of sixteen – so he makes a face and shakes his head. “Like, we’re not paying them, and we put restraining bolts on them when we don’t want them to get away, and –”

“Jasa,” says Dad’s voice. “Droid’s aren’t livin’.”

“But aren’t they?”

There’s a muffled grunt, and Dad pokes his head out from under the console. “They’re machinery, buddy. Wires and circuitry. Basic electromechanical engineering.”

“But they have personalities,” says Jacen stubbornly, crossing his arms.

“Not all of ‘em,” says Dad, resting his elbows on top of the dismantled dashboard and quirking his eyebrows.

“That’s ‘cause we wipe them.”

“Th –” Dad rubs a gloved hand against his chin, leaving a smudge of grease behind. He’s frowning. “Huh. But you don’t know that they’d have personalities if you _didn’t_ wipe ‘em.”

“What about Artoo and Threepio?”

“Artoo and Threepio,” says Dad, reaching over and plucking the multitool from where it’s sitting next to Jacen, “are _different_ , and you know it.”

Jacen bites on his lip and taps his fingers against the side of the console, watching as Dad ducks his head under the dashboard again.

“Yeah, maybe.”

“It’s probably a Force thing,” comes Dad’s voice from under the wiring, sounding distorted and tinny once again.

 _A Force thing._ Over the years, Jacen’s come to realize that Dad tends to use “that Force thing” as an explanation for most things he either doesn’t have the time to think through or doesn’t care enough about to fully understand. Obviously, there actually are some things that are “Force things”, which, Jacen admits, can be difficult for a non-Force-sensitive – like Dad – to fully appreciate. It’s never quite clear if Dad’s being sarcastic or not when he claims the involvement of the Force, though, unknown to most whether he’s really writing something off without thinking about it or gently teasing all three – four – _five_ , damn it – of the rest of them.

Knowing Dad, he’s too stubborn to let things just be _explained_ by the Force.

Of course he’s teasing. Slightly. Gently. Maybe a little.

The thing is, this time it actually _could_ be a Force thing.

 _The Force permeates all things,_ Uncle Luke had said, _it’s part of us; it makes us who we are._

“– Wrong person to ask,” Dad is saying. “Pass me that coupling, would’ya?”

Jacen feels his eyes widen.

“That’s it!” he says, fingers knocking the coupling onto the ground in his excitement. “Dad, that’s _it!_ ”

Dad extracts his head and shoulders once again to retrieve the coupling himself, peering up at Jacen with a raised eyebrow.

“Jasa, you lost me.”

“The Force! The Force is what makes sentients sentient, right?”

Dad pulls the rest of himself out and sits against the dashboard, clutching the coupling and crossing his arms. Jacen grins at him.

“Well, sure,” he says.

“Right! So if Threepio’s personality is a Force thing – like, if the Force can interact with non-living things through Force-sensitive living beings, right, then maybe when droids are made part of that – that Force imprint is left? In them? Then that could be an indicator of sentience!”

“If the Force is what gave Threepio his personality,” grumbles Dad (without missing a beat, and Jacen feels his grin grow wider), “then tell it from me it did a lousy job.”

“Actually,” says Jacen without thinking, “if it works the way I think it does, Threepio actually got his personality from Grandfather.”

Dad is silent for a moment, tapping his chin lightly with the end of the coupling. Jacen watches him, gripping his fingers against the ledge he’s perched on and trying to control the excited buzz in his chest. He needs to talk to Uncle Luke about this – or Jaya (and he knows she can already feel his excitement), or maybe even Aunt Mara or Kyp – ‘cause this is huge, this is _amazing_ , this could be reason for all sorts of changes and awareness because if the Force works this way on droids, then that could be an added bonus to explaining to people how it works on living sentients, as well, and this could have implications in animal cruelty and slavery across the galaxy for both sentients and non-sentients –

“Well,” Dad says finally, cutting through Jacen’s rapid train of thought. “If he’s listening, his damn droid’s aged me a good five years faster than I would have otherwise, so tell him thanks for that.”

And he makes a face at the coupling in his hand and tosses it aside.

“Eh, he probably heard you without me passing on the message,” says Jacen, trying to keep his shrug casual.

(Talking to Grandfather has become less and less frequent an activity – more so for him than for Jaina, perhaps, who isn’t as prone to holding grudges as Jacen is. But there’s something about the thought of “hey, this is the guy who wiped out a whole generation of Jedi and committed multiple atrocities across the galaxy! You’re related to him! He also cut your Uncle’s hand off and tortured your parents!” that makes casual conversation difficult, for Jacen, anyway.)

(He still says hello, and occasionally mutters jokes under his breath for Grandfather to hear. Grandfather’s good with the jokes – he appreciates them. He knows the value of a good joke. Jacen’s not about to just _give that up,_ genocide notwithstanding.)

“That,” says Dad, “is kind of creepy. And I still need that damned power coupling, so pass it up to your old man and don’t ask me why I threw it to the floor, will you?”

“For dramatic effect?” suggests Jacen, scooping the coupling up from the floor.

“The kid knows me,” says Dad, and Jacen grins again. Dad winks at him, offering a smile of his own – and a sliver of their earlier conversation is still stamped there, crooked and a tiny, tiny little bit confused; the sort he wears when he’s not really sure what Jacen’s going for but is ready to listen to him anyway.

(Dad gives those smiles a lot, but Jacen doesn’t mind; it’s the listening part that really helps, anyway.)

**

It’s a categorical truth of life that Uncle Lando can find the best hot chocolate in the galaxy. Uncle Luke, bless him, can make the best out of scratch – it’s a gift, he says, a talent you cultivate over many years of practice (like advanced meditation techniques, Jaina jokes, or understanding Aqualish) – but he doesn’t know the first thing about where to find quality chocolate vendors; Uncle Lando does. It might have something to do with his multiple businesses, or his knack for sweet-talking things out of people, or his many, many connections throughout the galaxy, but Mom always says cheerfully that he gets it illegally and it may or may not be laced with mild spice, which would explain why it tastes so damn good.

No one’s ever sure if Mom’s joking or not, and Uncle Lando never bothers to defend himself, either.

Jacen sips at the warm drink again and watches as Uncle Lando crosses his arms.

The air surrounding the Senate building on Coruscant is fresh and clear and soothing for once, nothing at all like the roiling humidity of the lower levels. The sky is clear and bright and the stone steps are clean and white and Jacen leans back against the pillar on the far left of the entrance, tapping his booted feet against the ground. Beside him, Jaina is humming under her breath, her cropped hair pulled back into a ponytail, two slim braids tucked behind her ears. Nik is fiddling with something in his hands, the overlong sleeves of Dad’s old spacer’s jacket covering half of his fingers, his thick, wavy hair vaguely mussed by the breeze; Tahiri is scribbling something down on their datapad and Syal Antilles is reading over her shoulder and half of Jaina’s classmates from the naval academy are perched on the different steps surrounding them. Lowie is growling suggestions to Nik under his breath every so often, telling him to twist this wire or tighten that bolt. Jacen exhales slowly.

The concept of a non-violent, peaceful protest seems to be more unheard of and inappropriate than the use of underpaid, abused labor in the production of popular consumer products, and the crowd that’s gathered around the front of the Senate building hasn’t stopped muttering the whole morning.

Of course, that’s not exactly a _bad_ thing. Public awareness of a popular politician’s use of slave equivalent labour in his on-the-side corporation, something that rakes in hundreds of millions of credits each year –

Well, Jacen figures that’s pretty good, even if some of the bystanders are looking at them like they’ve grown extra heads. Figuratively speaking, of course, as some sentients actually _do_ have more than one head. Except that, as Nik pointed out with a wide smile that was somehow more sarcastic than a thousand eye rolls put together, their names’ll probably be pasted over all the holorags in the galaxy by evening, _again_.

(Hopefully, Jacen thinks, the story will be about the protest this time, and not the smudge of engine grease on Jaina’s nose.)

(Oh, well.)

“Those two guys over there are about to call your parents any second, you know,” says Uncle Lando, passing over another three cups of chocolate and nodding at the pair of Senate guards standing uncomfortably at the edge of the walkway, eyeing them at intervals and fingering the comms at their belts.

“Let ‘em,” says Jaina.

“It’ll be good for public awareness,” adds Jacen.

“Maybe we’ll get holoreporters,” says Nik.

“Or more protestors!” says Tahiri, her eyes lighting up.

“Councilor Organa Solo might yell at them,” says a boy called Faz.

“Nah,” says Syal. “She’ll laugh at them first.”

“Don’t worry,” says Jacen. “We’ll be fine.”

There is the soft whizzing of passing speeders behind them as Uncle Lando looks at him; Jacen looks back steadily.

“Slave-equivalent labor is a very serious issue, Uncle Lando.”

(And it is. It really, really is and Jacen doesn’t know why no one’s thought to talk about this before even though Tahiri whispered earlier that morning, when they first suggested the protest and she was at their place anyway and decided to tag along, that there were, _are_ , probably so many political hangups surrounding the whole thing and ain’t that just a crying shame. Jaya had wondered if the issue’d come up in senate anytime soon and if Mom would know anything about it and all Jacen wants to do is plaster the articles they’d found all over the whole damn holonet because this is _important news_ , damn it all.)

“And your Mom is okay with you doin’ this?”

“She gave us a ride here,” Jacen and Jaina chorus, and Nik snorts from his right, passing a wonderfully warm cup of chocolate to Tahiri, who accepts it happily. Her curls frame her face and frizz in the steam wafting from the container.

“She told Jasa she’d have stayed too if it weren’t for the fact that there’d be no one to bail us out if she had.”

“Mom was just joking, though,” adds Jaya. “’Cause Dad could just bail all of us together if she stayed.”

“Right,” says Uncle Lando, arching an eyebrow at them.

Nik flicks at a piece of stray gravel on the building steps and snags the datapad from Tahiri’s lap. Jaya is grinning, (mouth less crooked than it might be, considering Uncle Lando’s disbelieving look), there are cheerful hellos sounding from the people seated behind them. Tahiri lifts her face up from her cup and rolls her eyes.

“And anyway, you’re all assuming that they _actually_ have grounds to arrest us on, here.”

Tahiri, thinks Jacen, knows these things. She has half the Security Transcripts of most of the Core Worlds memorized, and she says she wants to be the Temple’s historian, once she gets knighted.

(“ _Accurate_ history,” she explains one evening, sitting perched on one of the large stone adorning the Temple’s courtyard. Nik is sprawled on the grass below her legs, and Jaya, back from her semester at the pilot’s Academy, is tossing an old seed husk the size of Tahiri’s head back and forth with her brother. Jacen catches her next throw and grins at Tahiri, who is swinging her bare feet back and forth.

“Told from the point of view of the underdog,” says Jacen. “Nice.”

“If anyone can do it right, you can,” says Nik, and Tahiri beams.)

“It’s true,” says Jacen, mirroring his sister’s grin. “They don’t.”

“Technically,” says Jaya, “we’re doing absolutely nothing illegal.”

“Or hurting anyone,” adds Tahiri, her smile brighter and more sunny than her golden curls.

Uncle Lando stares at them.

“Well,” allows Nik, expression flat and tone serious. “Maybe Minister Yar’s pocket.”

“Section twenty-two-hundred and thirteen of the Coruscant Security Transcript,” says Tahiri through her laughter, and Jacen grins; this one, he knows word for word.

“Peaceful gathering of three or more sentients in one location cannot be subject to punishment or discipline so far as the persons involved are not engaging in violent, destructive, or otherwise security-disturbing behavior,” recites Jacen.

Uncle Lando opens his mouth and closes it.

“Hey,” says Syal, peering over Nik’s shoulder. “Is that my Dad in your speeder?”

Jaya leans back on her elbows against the steps and crosses her feet at the ankles, her smile widening. “So you see,” she says, “even if they _did_ call Mom and Dad –”

“Or Uncle Luke –”

“Or Aunt Mara –”

“Or Chewie –”

“Or you –”

“Or _anyone_ , really –”

“All they’d get is a laugh in their face and they couldn’t do a thing about us!”

“It’s a foolproof plan,” says Jacen. “And I’m not moving.”

From beside Jacen, Artoo warbles in agreement.

(Out of courtesy for Uncle Lando’s resigned expression, Jacen refrains from pointing out that peacefully protesting the continued use of slave-equivalent labor is much less criminal than engaging your government in firefights and demolishing Death Stars.

He has a feeling Uncle Lando won’t be amused.)

“Fine,” sighs Uncle Lando, handing over the last cup of chocolate. “I’ll go tell Wedge. We’ll see if we can drop off some food in a few hours.”

Jacen feels his grin grow wider.

**

Yavin’s sun is hot and sticky and heavy, but Jacen smells the earth under his toes and tastes the freshness of the moisture in the air with every breath he takes, feels the thrum of the wildlife in the forest surrounding them. He doesn’t mind the heat, not even when it’s drenched him in sweat, his thin tunic sticking to his neck and shoulders and the small of his back as he and Uncle Luke spar in the midmorning sun.

He’s eighteen years old, almost a fully-trained Jedi Knight, wonderfully in-shape, and still – his Uncle, with his greying beard and laugh-lined eyes, cheerfully and unapologetically thrashes his ass in lightsaber sparring every single time.

“Third time,” Jacen says from the ground, gasping for breath. “Third time’s the charm, Uncle Luke. That’s how the expression goes, right?”

Uncle Luke tucks his ‘saber in his belt and sits cross-legged on the dirt beside Jacen’s head.

“A Jedi,” says Uncle Luke solemnly, “doesn’t use superstitious and unexamined spacer proverbs to defend his sloppy footwork.” There’s a beat. “Also, if we were taking an inventory, Jasa, this is closer to around the hundredth time –”

Jacen’s laugh intermingles with his uncle’s, loud and heedless in the rich air around them. He can feel Uncle Luke in the Force; bright, strong, and buoyant beside him, the threads connecting them twirling and fusing always.

“Jasa,” says Uncle Luke suddenly. “What’s up?”

Jacen frowns at the blue of the sky above them, confused.

“Up? Nothing’s up.”

“Mmm,” agrees Uncle Luke. He uncrosses his legs and let them splay out in front of him, leaning back on his elbows until he’s lying down on the ground beside Jacen, also looking up at the sky. Presently, he says, “There’s a cloud shaped like a mewsk up there.”

Jacen breathes in, deeply. The dampness of the grass and loam underneath him is refreshing against his hot back, even through his sodden, sweaty clothes. When they were young, really young, Mom would always take them to the balcony of their Coruscant apartment and show them the clouds.

He still remembers it as clearly as if it were happening right then; can still feel the cool, artificially-generated breezes that nudged gently at their pajamas and the way Mom’s eyes would light up when they found a particularly funny-looking cloud.

( _I need you to remember something, Jasa_.)

“Uncle Luke?”

“Mmmhmm?”

“Do you – do you still talk to Grandfather?”

Uncle Luke is quiet for a moment. It stretches, filled with the sounds of twittering forest life and Jacen’s own breathing.

“Uncle Luke?”

“Sometimes,” says Uncle Luke. “Sometimes, I talk to him. He doesn’t always talk back, you know.”

“Oh,” says Jacen. “I – I wouldn’t know.”

Uncle Luke’s head turns in the grass. “Wouldn’t you?”

“No,” says Jacen. “Well, I’m – I dunno. I just. Sort of. Stopped talking to him, I s’pose.”

“Hmmm,” says Uncle Luke, and turns back to the clouds.

Jacen bites on his lip, his fingers curling into the thick dirt of the forest floor.

“You don’t seem surprised,” he tells his Uncle. It nearly comes out a question.

Jacen watches as Uncle Luke plucks a blade of grass from the ground and twirls it between the fingers of his gloved hand. He doesn’t always wear the glove, these days – his hand’s been repaired more times than Jacen can count, and each time, it comes out again looking as good as new, the synthskin on the outside smooth and soft as a child’s. But still: sometimes, he wears the glove.

(Mom says, “He does it for his own absurd sense of _style_ ,” leaning in and smirking as though she’s divulged some frayed-around-the-edges, age-old joke. Anyone else, Jacen thinks, would dismiss that as an unlikely habit for the Grand Jedi Master to possess, but Jacen knows his Uncle better than most.)

“Well,” says Uncle Luke, finally. “No. It’s hard, sometimes.”

“Yeah,” mumbles Jacen, his eyes flicking back up to the sky.

“I meant, even for me,” says his Uncle’s voice, and Jacen turns around again. “I should clarify. It’s hard, even for me, Jasa. Certainly for your mother.”

Jacen swallows. _I know_.

Uncle Luke’s blue eyes are soft, warm with the colour of the sky above them.

“Have I ever told you the story about the meiroolon fruits that my Aunt Beru would buy each year from the marketplace?”

It’s a sudden change in conversation, and Jacen feels his eyebrows dip into a frown. “No?”

Uncle Luke grins -- the way he always does when he’s about to tell stories.

“Well,” he says. “They were awful expensive. Imported from some outer rim planet called Lothal, I think, and Aunt Beru would only get them once a year.” He pushes himself upwards onto his elbows, looking down at Jacen. “See, the thing was, some of the meiloorons had to be picked before they were ripe, just for shipping purposes. So the ones Aunt Beru bought, they weren’t always nice, ripe fruits right away. It was terribly disappointing to nine-year-old me, you know.”

Jacen grins. “I’m sure.”

“Aunt Beru used to say, _well, that’s the way the suns set_ , and tell me to get on with my chores. The fruit always ripened in a day or two, anyway.”

“Was it any good?” asks Jacen, rolling onto his side in the grass. Uncle Luke’s eyes are still soft, and there’s a tiny trill in the Force between them.

“For a Tatoo kid like me?” says Uncle Luke. “Always.”

“I wonder if we can get meiroolons in the Core,” says Jacen, his fingers going back to picking at the grass.

Uncle Luke is quiet again, still propped up on his elbows. There’s a soft breeze, cutting through the heavy humidity that still lingers above them. It whispers through Jacen’s drenched tunic and he shivers, almost involuntary, at the cool tendrils brushing against his hot skin.

“Sometimes,” says Uncle Luke quietly, “the fruit’ll fall off the tree before it’s really properly ripe. Lots of fruits get nice and juicy before it’s their time to be picked, of course. But not all of them.”

Jacen traces a blade of grass with his eyes and feels his breath catch in his chest.

“But that’s okay,” Uncle Luke is saying, “because if you try and taste the unripe fruit right when it’s fallen, it’ll be bitter and awful. Might even make you sick, you know, and that’s never good.”

“The worst,” mumbles Jacen into the grass.

“Mmm,” agrees Uncle Luke. “All the fruits ripen eventually though. Even if they’re already fallen. And if you give them a chance then – well.”

Jacen flops back onto his back and looks up at the mewsk in the sky.

“Lots of times,” says Uncle Luke, his voice still quiet and steady, “those fruits are just as sweet as the others. They just take a little longer to get there.”

Dad said, once, _it’s complicated_. Jacen wonders if he’ll ever fully understand; if Uncle Luke struggles with this just as much as Jacen does.

(He wonders if Grandfather’s ever had a meiroolon fruit.)

Jacen inhales, and pushes himself up to his feet.

“Best out of four?”

Uncle Luke is smiling up at him from the ground, his peppered-grey beard glinting in the sunlight.

“You forget I’ve already beat you two times, Jasa.”

Jacen grins.

**

Mom finds him lying on his stomach under their old repulsor chair, flicking through a stack of datapads. He’s in the small library that connects to Mom and Dad’s room, still as full and disorganized in their house on Yavin as it was in the Coruscant apartment ages ago. He can still remember sitting with Mom as a kid, going step by step through her datapads, learning to read the Aubresh characters on the screen. Jaina would be there too, but she’d always be restless, wriggling in the chair and climbing up behind them to peer over Mom’s shoulder and lying on her back on the floor, yelling up words to Mom whenever asked.

Jaina’s back in Coruscant right now, scheduled to stop by Yavin in a few days. The apartment they share there is small, less lavish than the high-ceilinged, large-windowed memory of their early childhood – but still, Jacen feels more at home here, on the floor of his mother’s library.

“Hmmph,” says Mom, perching on the edge of the repulsor chair. Jacen rolls around over to his back to look up at her; she’s trying to look severe, he knows, because her head is angled upwards like she’s addressing some politician. Jacen’s hand comes up to finger the piercing in his left lobe, his teeth biting down against his lip to smother a grin.

“Jaya said we’d do it.”

Mom’s lips twitch in betrayal.

“Your sister says a lot of things.”

The rough carpet of the floor and nice and scratchy against Jacen’s bare arms. “Really,” he says, and Mom finally smiles, her lips curling up at the corners and her posture softening.

“I thought I’d find you in here. I have something for you.”

Jacen groans, pushing himself up onto his elbows. “Aw, man. Did I leave behind my jacket again? It’s not that cold on Coruscant anymore, Mom. They fixed the climate controls again.”

Mom makes a faint tutting sound and shakes her head, sliding down from her perch on the repulsor chair to kneel down on the floor. Her movements are as soft and graceful as Jacen remembers; his mother’s warmth always familiar and welcome after trips away from home.

She’s not always that way, Jacen knows – has witnessed once, and heard countless stories about from Dad and Uncle Luke, the way she can bring a room full of beings to their knees with no more than a tilt of her chin and a single, scathing retort. When they were children, Jaya was always more interested in the parts of the Story where the princess would fire her blaster, the grand finale where she slew the evil crime lord. Jacen thinks that that’s all swell, but. There’s something about the power of Mom’s words that fills him with awe more than any firefight does.

Mom folds her knees underneath her, and Jacen sits up completely, leaning in to look over his mother’s shoulder. She’s cradling a recording chip in her hand, soft palms opening and revealing its scratched, cracked exterior to him. The durasteel is tarnished and faded, worn and baring deep scratches along the sides. It’s an outdated model, Jacen thinks, the part of his brain that’s filled with Nik’s long list of Technology Facts jumping to life.

“I’d noticed,” Mom says, a sliver of amusement lacing its way under her words, “that you’d taken an interest in slavery.”

Jacen’s breath catches; he glances back at the datapads strewn over the carpet, recordings of Old Republic senate meetings and historical archives on galactic slave trade, begged off of Tahiri and Uncle Luke. Once, Uncle Luke had said, _things are changing. Maybe you can help._

Jacen bites down on his lip and nods.

Mom’s smile widens, suddenly filled with a heaviness that Jacen has never been able to decipher, even through the Force. She’s calm and steady beside him, but there’s a flicker of white light right at the center of where Mom is, and Jacen leans forward on impulse, eyes trained on the cracked holoprojector in his mother’s hands.

It flickers to life; blue and fuzzy, its quality subpar at best.

It’s as though he’s looking at Mom, but with more lines creasing her face, more roughness to her hair. Weathered and tired and somehow looking old, despite something in Jacen’s gut shrilling that this woman, smiling tentatively into the recording device, is actually younger.

The recording flickers once more, and the woman’s voice crackles to life.

“– it and Amee,” she’s saying. “I made them pie today, they were very good company, Ani. They miss you. Kit’s been saving up credit chips so that he can – oh, look here, he’s right here.”

A tousled head pokes into the frame, sun-browned and gap toothed, grinning at the recorder. The angle is distorted, but Jacen can see the excitement on the child’s face.

“Hi, Ani! Your Mom made us pie today!”

“Kit ate three slices,” confirms the woman, her lined face breaking out into a smile. Something in Jacen’s stomach bottoms out; he _knows_ the smile.

He sees it each time he looks at holos of himself.

He turns to look at Mom, who’s looking at the flickering woman with a crease between her eyebrows. Mom’s face is no longer young and smooth, but it lacks the worn appearance of the woman in the recording; aging quietly and comfortably, rather than by wear and tear and force.

“Shmi,” says Mom. “It means ‘my name’ in Taal. I’ve told you that before, haven’t I.”

Jacen turns to look at her, his eyes wide.

“I know,” says Mom, “that sometimes, it – that everything can be a little difficult. But. I wanted to give you this. I’ve had it for years, and listening to it – when I listened to it for the first time, Jasa.” She pauses; something in her Force presence spins and solidifies, brighter than before. “When I listened to it for the first time, there was so much there. She has so much in her heart.”

Jacen swallows, and nods. The recording is off, now, Mom’s thumb resting against the activator.

Perhaps it's because he's never seen _this_ part of their family before -- that he's witnessed the powerful speech of Bail Organa in the Senate, during the dark days of the Empire, playing with fire even as his diplomacy dipped its toes into loyalist waters, his presence steady and calm. He's watched endless flickering holos from the crumbling days of the Old Republic, of his Grandmother's slight figure filling up an entire Hall with its presence, an echo of Mom's fire and passion, decked head to toe in colourful lavish garments and painting the space above the podium with the soul and passion in her voice. Her eternal fight for justice and peace was perhaps, Jacen thinks, _not enough_ \-- but Padme Amidala's conviction in the possibility of an equitable galaxy, however naive, seems to have trickled down into her children _and_ grandchildren. Mom doesn't talk about her much -- _gone_ from almost the moment she and Uncle Luke came into the galaxy -- but despite how much Mom's posture and accent screams _Organa_ , there are imprints of her mother the Girl-Queen there, as well. It makes the historical datapads Jacen has borrowed from Tahiri a little more human, if still oddly impersonal. But this -- _Shmi_ \-- Jacen can feel her realness in his bones, and its startles him. 

Mom smiles at him, the same smile as in the recording, and Jacen leans over and wraps his arms around his mother. He dwarfs her with his lanky limbs and tall frame, but still – she grips his shoulders, warm and solid and anchoring as ever.

“I’m proud of you, sweetheart,” she says, and Jacen feels his fingers tighten in their grip against the synthsilk of her shirt. “Jasa, I’m so, _so_ proud.”

**

_An interlude: Tenel Ka, once more._

He doesn’t think or care about what it means that his chest feels full and warm with a thrill of excitement when he hears her voice at the front of the Temple, close to the ridiculous mural of their parents. He hasn’t seen Tenel Ka for _ages_ , and even though when he was fifteen, he spent two days moodily kicking at rocks on their front porch to the background noises of Jaina rolling her eyes sympathetically, he thinks that whatever his feelings were about her grandmother whisking her off to rule kingdoms and be _royal_ , he’s excited to see her now.

Jaina turns to see him before Tenel Ka does, her eyes sparking half-knowingly ( _shut up, Jaya_ ) and Jacen doesn’t realize that he’s jogging down the hall with a big grin on his face until he has to awkwardly stumble to a halt in front of them pretend to be casual.

He puts a hand against the Terrible Hero Mural, misjudges its position dramatically, and overbalances to the side.

“Um,” he says, “Tenel Ka. Hi!”

“Hello, Jacen Solo,” she says, and maybe there’s a bit of mirth in her voice. She crosses her super-buff arms -- ugh, no, _what_. Jacen grimaces at his own internal monologue and straightens up. “A Jedi Knight and yet you still have no center of balance.”

“Come on,” said Jacen. “Did I _ever_ claim I had a center of balance.”

She grins, and Jacen thanks the Force five times over because it’s suddenly, blessedly not awkward anymore, like they’re back to being fourteen and daring each other to climb the big twisty-branched tree in Yavin forest. Her nose still scrunches up crookedly when she smiles, but there are more brass rings looped through her earlobes now. She never made a lightsaber while she was at the Temple, but there’s one hanging from her belt now, sitting comfortably against her thigh as though it belongs there.

“So,” says Jaina, her own grin turning crooked. “Who wants to race me to the TIE fighter hiding spot?”

There’s a pause, a moment where Tenel Ka’s lips thin and Jacen almost thinks she’s about to refuse, before something in the Force shifts with a burst of light and she’s past him like a slingshot, long red hair streaming behind her tanned shoulders as she sprints towards the forest.

“I was always the fastest runner, Jaina!” she yells, and Jaina howls in outrage, cheeks puffing out comically and short hair slipping out of its sloppy braid as she nearly shoves Jacen over in her effort to catch up with their friend. 

Jacen thinks that maybe he hadn’t even realized how much he missed this, Jaina away for months at a time at the pilot’s academy and him digging through Mom’s library and half their old friends in different corners of the galaxy.

But Tenel Ka is back now, and he’s not sure for how long, but he picks himself up off the ground and runs after them, laughter bright in his chest.

(Later, her posture is impeccable as always, and she says, “I had hear you have been sticking your nose in politics,” while fruit juice dribbles down Jacen’s chin.

He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand like Dad taught him, putting his Chorra peach to the side, onto the rock of the Temple wall even though Threepio would chide him for being unsanitary, and lifts an eyebrow at her.

“Sticking my nose?”

Tenel Ka clasps her hands in her lap and shrugs; very unlike her. “I have heard things,” she repeats.

“Um,” says Jacen, making a conscious effort not to bite down on his lip. “Yeah, I – um, Mom and I are trying to get the senate to consider a new anti-slavery bill.” He swallows, because her eyes are bright and dark and intense, just like they have always been, and he needs to be detailed. “Specifically with regards to outer-rim planets. Anakin’s been helping me write something on droid rights, but mostly I’ve just been working on this thing with Mom. There’s … a lot of credits, um, involved.”

“For someone who is called _silvertongued_ , you sound remarkably colloquial, Jacen,” she says. There is laughter coating her words.

“They’re callin’ me silvertongued?” asks Jacen. His words come out over something he thinks might be a scoff, and she tilts her head. Her dark braids spill gently over her shoulder as she does.

“You got your ear pierced.”

Jacen’s hand immediately jumps to his earlobe, the sudden shock of the change in topic colouring his fair cheeks. He grins crookedly at her.

“It was Jaya’s idea. For our majority, it’s uh – we both got one. In the same place.”

Tenel Ka’s lips curl slightly at the edges. “Ah. Aha. A physical connector.”

“Something like that,” says Jacen, his fingers still fiddling with the curve of the black-polished metal. “Yeah.” Her hands unclasp in her lap and press against her legs, and he catches the glint of her lightsaber against her hip again, so he says, “How was the Hapan Court?” and grimaces almost immediately after, teeth sinking into the inside of his cheek.

She frowns, very slightly, at something over Jacen’s shoulder.

“It was … the Court.”

As if she has not spent the past four years entrenched within its extreme politics and foisted with responsibility. 

“Okay,” says Jacen, because he’s not sure what else to say. He thinks about how she used to help him sneak his crystal snake out of the cafeteria by throwing her cold soup in Raynar’s face, and he blurts, “When are you going back?”

Tenel Ka’s focus shifts back to him; there’s a slightly puzzled expression on her face.

“Going back?”

Jacen swallows. “To Hapes.”

The frown is back, lines folding over her smooth skin. “I am not going back, Jacen,” and her voice is so soft.

Jacen blinks. “You’re – what?”

“I am not going back,” Tenel Ka repeats. “My father understands, as do – my mother’s people. My grandmother does not, but – I am not going back.”

He remembers his mother telling him gently, the first time Jacen realized that Tenel Ka was a _princess_ , that it made a lot of sense for her to hide it from everyone, even his slightly-hurt thirteen year old self. _There are ... controversial opinions about Hapes in the Galaxy,_ she'd said, smoothing back his hair. _Not everyone agrees with what they do. I'm not surprised Tenel Ka didn't want everyone to know, Jasa._ Jacen feels his fingers curl against the smooth rock of the Temple wall and swallows. Her frown is still in place and she’s taken to looking at the spot above her shoulder again, one slim, manicured finger picking at the untarnished brass of one of her many bracelets.

“Okay,” he says, and feels something in her Force presence ripple. She looks back at him, and once again, the corners of her mouth curl very slightly.

“The earring suits you, Jacen Solo.”

Jacen feels the smile tug at his lips, unbidden.

“How much d’you wanna bet we can convince Jaya to set up a tent out here and sleep on the wall?”

“Hm,” she tilts her head. “She has not already made the suggestion?”

Jacen thinks, _Tenel Ka is staying._ Jacen says, “Ah, she’s been bombarding me with the idea through the Force this whole time. C’mon, I’ll go grab some sheets from the dispensary upstairs. We can stargaze!”

Tenel Ka’s smile grows, and Jacen grins back, full and bright.)

**

 _An interlude: Tenel Ka,_ finally.

Kissing Tenel Ka is, contrary to the stuff he’s read in Jaina’s single datacopy of some old romance novel, _not_ everything he’d imagined and more.

It’s something entirely different, something that knocks the breath in and out of his chest all at once, something that makes him feel like he’s dunked his head underwater and something that’s like floating up in the clouds at the same time. Tenel Ka kisses with her whole body – something Jacen should have suspected, given her fierce determination in literally everything else they ever do – always in it to _win_ , to put in every last bit of effort she has. Her lips are soft and probably taste like gold, even though Jacen isn’t sure what gold tastes like, exactly, but it’s really nice and the way her cheeks fit under his too-large hands is pretty nice too and he has to pause, for a second, so he can breathe and grin a big, huge, dopey grin.

She smiles at him, hands pressed against his chest, just hard enough that a small part of his distracted brain remembers that even though he’s several inches taller than her, now, she could still probably shove him to the floor and pin his arms behind his back in one fluid motion without even breaking a sweat. Of the two of them, she’s always been the more athletic one, anyway.

She smiles, small and secret, and Jacen feels his eyelids flutter, feels the blush grow on his cheeks, the swell of the Force in his chest.

He’s eighteen and she’s been back for nearly five months. It was a dare, she'd dared him to race her up the big tree in the middle of the Yavin jungle, the one they used to hang around under as children, used to stash away Jaina’s old mechanics projects and play Rebels and Rogues around and hide behind when they were skiving off their meditation practice. She’s still faster than him, still lithe and tall and all muscled biceps and hard calves, hoisting herself up thick branch after thick branch and leaving him hanging by one arm from the awkwardly positioned fork in the middle of the Old Tree.

She hops down from the top branch, booted feet landing squarely beside his fingers, and reaches down a helpful hand. She’s pulled him up to a sitting position on the branch and Jacen runs his fingers through his hair and pretends he isn’t just a tiny bit out of breath – pretends that it’s because of the physical exertion and not the way the afternoon sunlight catches the top of her dark, red hair; the parts that are caught in the shadows are almost soot brown, but the top, shimmering in the sunlight, flashes redgold like a sunrise.

“That’s the twentieth time you have lost,” she informs him seriously, tucking her legs out from under her so that she’s sitting beside him properly. “Since the first time I challenged you, remember? We were thirteen and I bested you without even trying.”

She still talks a little funny, he thinks – still too serious, too courtly, too high-and-mighty, like she doesn’t know how to string words together all in one go. Jacen feels warmth bubble up in his chest.

“I nearly fell out of the tree and broke my arm,” he reminds her in a faux-annoyed voice, shaking his head and clucking his tongue. “I almost _died_.”

“But you did not,” she counters, smiling smugly, “and I have won. Again.”

“You know,” says Jacen, the words spilling off of his tongue before he can reign them in, “I was always trying to make you laugh? Always. Half of my dumb jokes were for your benefit, Tenel Ka.”

“And I did not laugh,” she says, the smugness disappearing from her smile. It’s soft, now, and different, the shadows from the tree leaves dappling her tan skin and making her expression difficult to read.

“Nah,” says Jacen, his heart doing a funny thing were it skips beats in his chest, too-fast or too-slow or too- _something_ , and he blurts out the next thing so that he doesn’t do anything exceptionally stupid, grinning at her and gesturing to the tree branch they’re sitting on – “you were always _leaving me hanging_ , as it were –”

And her laugh has burst out from her chest, bubbled out of her mouth – she’s _laughing_ , bright and hearty and her eyes have scrunched up and she’s shaking her head, and she says,

“Oh, _Force_ , that one was bad, Jacen Solo.”

And he thinks that _gods, yes, it was one of the worst jokes I’ve ever made_ , and he leans in and kisses her laughing mouth.

She kisses him back.

(In retrospect, it’s awkward and fumbled and Jacen knocks his nose against hers and they would have fallen out of the tree had Tenel Ka not had such exceptional balance. Or maybe such exceptional upper body strength.

But in the moment, Jacen thinks, _gold_.)

**

When he’s twenty-one years old, his little brother almost dies.

Aunt Mara comes and sits with him on the stairs outside of the Yavin temple, her rucksack making a _thunk_ as it hits the worn rock of the steps. They always, it seems, end back up on Yavin IV.

Jacen thinks he could be being melodramatic about the whole thing, but, frankly, as he’ll tell Nik later, it’s krethin’ _terrifying_ as all hells.

(“Terrifying for _you_ ,” mutters Nik, rolling his eyes. “I’m the one who nearly _died_ , loser.”)

Aunt Mara presses her hands to her thighs, freckled shoulders bare in the receding Yavin sun. The air is warm, gentle in its caress. It shouldn’t be so pleasant, Jacen thinks. Not now. Not after this.

“So,” says Aunt Mara, flicking at her leg. “He’s a trooper, your brother.”

Jacen stares at the worn stone of the steps, so familiar in their shape and feel, and digs his fingers into the fabric of his pants under his thighs. His hands can’t stop shaking -- an adrenaline-fused, jittery, anxious feeling that makes him feel more helpless than he ought to be. His shoulders have started hurting, they’re so tense, and all he wants to do is squeeze his eyes shut against the world.

From somewhere in the jungle bordering the temple, a bird twitters.

“I just feel –” His words stick in his throat, and he can feel his eyebrows creasing. He’s not supposed to be so shaken, he knows; everything is fine, Nik is _fine_ , barely even bruised up and maybe he passed out for a bit and Jacen was yelling but he woke up again, didn’t he, his eyes flickered open two timeparts after the explosion and Jacen had felt all the air slam back into his lungs at once.

“Jasa,” says Aunt Mara quietly, in her soft Coruscanti accent, and Jacen wonders how fragile she thinks him to be right now that she’s using his childhood nickname for the first time in a long time. “It’s okay to learn from mistakes like this.”

And Jacen freezes, because he’s been expecting the inevitable _it wasn’t your fault_ all afternoon. He exhales, untangling his fingers from his pants and pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes. Beside him, Aunt Mara is an uncharacteristically gentle presence in the Force, buzzing warm and strong.

“I bet that _fchlenk_ Dengar said some nasty things,” she says conversationally, leaning back on her palms, ankles linking in front of her. Jacen feels his mouth twitch into a weak grin despite himself.

(“If you don’t respect them, they can’t scare you,” Mom is saying as they sit on the steps to the Temple, worn and familiar underneath them even then. Jacen’s fiddling with his lightsaber in his hands and watching the ‘flitters streak over the tops of the biggest tree in the forest and Mom laughs softly and ruffles his hair. “So no more monsters under the bed, okay? You show them you don’t care.”)

Jacen exhales into his hands. “He was a _sleamo_. That part doesn’t matter.”

“Mmm,” says Aunt Mara, stretching out her booted toes. She’s not become _softer_ since they had Ben, Jacen thinks, but – more grounded. A less erratic presence. He lets his head tuck into the crook of his elbow and turns to look at her properly.

“I just – should’ve known better, you know?”

“Ah,” says Aunt Mara, “but you didn’t.”

“I –”

“Which is fine, Jace. Sometimes these things happen.”

Jacen feels his throat tighten.

“They shouldn’t. They can’t just – you can’t just get someone _killed_ and learn –”

“You didn’t get anyone killed,” says Aunt Mara, firm and suddenly-hard. He can see the tarnished glint of her earrings in the evening sun.

(He’s pulling himself up off of the ground when the bastard recognizes him, laughing as Jacen stumbles to his feet and tries to shake of the lingering feeling of being run over by a zilobeast. Jaina’s always been able to take a punch with more grace than he has, damn it, and this time’s no different.

“Jacen Prestor Solo,” says the man, thin lips pulling into a gloating smile, eyes dark with spite. “What an absolute delight to have you hear with us today!”

“Glad to be here, pal,” Jacen says, straightening his shoulders and taking a deep breath. His ribs twinge, painfully, which is never a good sign. _Oh, kreth_.

And there it is: the inevitable, _Did you really think you could pull this off_ , lips curling in derision, and Jacen thinks that he’s been doubting himself all morning, really, but this guy doesn’t need to know that.

“I dunno,” says Jacen, poking his bottom lip experimentally with his tongue. He tastes copper and makes a face, lifting a hand to wipe at his mouth. He doesn’t spit; he remembers being grounded for a week for challenging Jaya to a projectile-spit contest in the middle of a state fundraiser and swallows back the blood. “I believe in some pretty radical things.” He glares. “Or that’s what they tell me, anyway.”

“Ah, yes,” says the man, smiling coldly. He’s not too tall, about Jaya’s height maybe, with greying hair at his temples and slim shoulders. Surprisingly clean-cut for a slaver, Jacen thinks sourly – or, maybe, not slaver: _businessman._ Corruption at its krethin’ finest.

He’s calm, though – completely at ease, and Jacen wonders if it’s because of the blaster at his hip or the fact that he might have backup stationed right outside, because either way Jacen’s ‘saber is nowhere to be found (he really needs to stop losing it, dammit) and he’s not sure he can divest the guy of his weapon fast enough when he’s standing there as alert and poised as he is. Unfortunate – according to Dad, you can always take out the overconfident dramatic ones easiest; steely calm and total crazy are never in your favor. Jacen’s eyes rake over the steel door to the room and the vents and piping lining the ceiling. His fingers twitch; the datachip is barely two feet behind him, resting on the counter (a treasure-trove of information against a whole quadrant’s worth of a slaving operation, he thinks, and if he gets it back as evidence to the council, well, _Force almighty_ they could actually be this close to getting the damn motion passed.)

If he could just tug it towards him without getting blasted in the chest –

“I’ve heard about your continued determination with the senate,” Dengar is saying. “I can assure you, boy, that’s not going to get you anywhere anytime fast.”

Jacen leans back, slightly, pretends to shift his posture to one of casual disrespect while letting his hand drop behind him and almost fumbles when there’s a familiar ripple in the Force. He’d kept his senses sharp and alert, knowing that it was only him going in and that backup would probably come if things went tail-up (which they _haven’t_ , he tells himself stubbornly, he’s got it _under control)_ but this presence is way-too-familiar and oh, oh gods, this is _bad_.

He sets his jaw.

“Wanna bet?”

Trask Dengar’s eyes grow cold. “Your reputation precedes you, I’ll give you that. It’s not just Mummy holding your hand anymore, is it?”

Involuntarily, Jacen feels his hands clench into fists. “If she was, you’d probably already be dead, _sleamo_. Things are changing.”

“And, in the meantime,” Dengar throws back, tapping the fingers of his right hand on his temple, tugging his blaster free of its holster with his left. “You’re going to be stuck here, and I’m going to make sure it’s beneficial. How many people were with you today?”

“Just me.”

“Even your type isn’t daft enough to think you can do something like this all by yourself.”

“You got me,” says Jacen stubbornly. “I’ve won the ‘really krethin’ dumb’ award all by myself.”

“Not very eloquent for the boy they call _silvertongued_ ,” snaps Dengar, the words coming out cutting and sharp over his tongue. Jacen feels his shoulders tense and is about to open his mouth when he feels the same presence pulsate through the Force, sudden and bright. (It would be a problem, Jacen thinks, was he not about to quite possibly be blasted in the chest. Which would be bad. Mostly. Probably. He could kill his crazy siblings later.) “But then, they called Organa that, too, and I never saw him as particularly imposing in the senate despite his loyalist views. Have you seen the recordings, too, boy? Trying to live up to your namesake, Jacen Prestor?”

“No,” growls Jacen. “I’m trying to do some good in this galaxy. It’s a helluva concept, buddy. You ever heard of it?”

Jacen was expecting the rustle behind Dengar, the near-silent drop. He remembers, clearly, the pride Nik’s always taken in his light-footedness, the way he can slip in and out of places with so much more finesse than the twins.

 _A damn menace,_ Dad’ll say sometimes, and Jacen always grins.

So Jacen grins now, too, because grinning at Dengar will probably confuse him, and Jacen’s all for that.

“And then people always run screaming when I say _I_ wanna live up to my namesake,” says Anakin’s voice cheerfully.

Dengar turns.

And gets a fist planted directly into his nose.

It’s a beautiful punch, if Jacen may say so himself.

“That,” says Jacen, “was an _atrocious_ one-liner.”

“Untrue,” says Nik through clenched teeth, flapping his hand in the air and groaning. “That was the best damn one-liner of my career. Oh, _fchlenk_ , I think I broke a finger.”

“Did you forget to put your thumb outside the fist again?” says Jacen, grabbing a moaning Dengar by the armpits and dragging him towards the supply closet behind him. “Cause you did that last time.”

“ _No_ ,” says Nik, hopping up and down on the spot. “Our friend assclown over her just had a really hard head, okay?”

“Unbelievable,” mutters Jacen, kneeling down and tugging the blaster out from Dengar’s holster. “How’d you even _get_ here?”

“Jaya claimed you were about to die and got all dramatic on us,” Nik says, grabbing the datachip from the counter and inserting it into the display. “Mom’s gonna ground you for the rest of eternity.”

“Best news I’ve heard all day,” sighs Jacen, and Nik grins, even though they’re probably, very likely, most-definitely about to die.)

He didn’t die – and neither did Nik, in the end. Stupid idiot only passed out for two timeparts, and frightened Jacen half to death.

Jacen tells Aunt Mara this, his head still nestled in the crook of his elbow.

“I’m sure he’ll be very excited about it when he wakes up, too,” says Aunt Mara, rubbing at her chin. Jacen makes a face, and beside him, her Force presence seems to vibrate with a gentle, understated humor.

There’s more twittering from the forest; both of them are silent, now, Jacen watching the sun climb higher against the Yavin sky, its rays beating down through his tunic and soaking into the top of his dark head. His fingers play with his shirtsleeve and it’s warm and steady and comfortable, and everything in his chest is screaming.

( _They didn't see the explosion coming._

_He wasn't prepared._

This is what's running through Jacen's head as his eyes take in the spatter of grit and dirt along Nik’s cheek. He isn’t moving, he _isn’t moving_ , and all Jacen can hear come out of his mouth is his brother’s name, stumbling over itself in its desperation. When Jacen was fifteen, he told Nik off for wanting to spend time with him, because he was _older now_ and had no time for little brothers. He was fifteen then, and stupid, but it’s all he thinks about as he grabs Nik’s shoulders and pulls him forward, something big and unfathomable and strong slamming into Jacen’s lungs. It’s never been play pretend, and maybe Jacen knew that already, but he’d never thought –

He’d never really _thought_ –)

Something large and brightly-coloured disturbs the tops of one of the trees in the ‘scape in front of them. Jacen presses his cheek more closely against his elbow.

(“Nik! _Nik!_ Anakin, Nik please, come on, wake up, Nik, _Nik_ , wake up wake – w-wake _up_ –”)

(He doesn’t realize that there are shell-shocked tears streaking his own dirty cheeks until Nik gasps awake, breath audibly tearing at his throat, and starts coughing. Jacen grabs him into a hug and presses his face to his shoulder and doesn’t even register that he’s saying _thank Force_ over and over until Nik chokes out something along the lines of “you’re crushing me, Jasa,” and Jacen has to let him go and look at the tear stain on Anakin’s tunic shoulder. There is a datachip clutched in his trembling hand, so tightly that the edge is digging into his flesh, and it has the power to save a million lives or more but all Jacen can see is his little brother’s pale, dirtied face.)

Aunt Mara makes a sudden noise and shifts her feet.

“Jasa,” she says, slowly and into the warm blanket of air. “Don’t think you need to sacrifice anything for a cause.”

Jacen looks up, cheek brushing against his arm. “What?”

Aunt Mara’s eyes are hardsoft all at once, green like the forest in front of them.

“Spread the love in your heart. Force knows the galaxy needs it. But don’t’ –” Inhale, laced with a sharpness that Jacen thinks he might never fully understand. “Don’t think that you need to lose anything in order to do that. Please.”

Jacen swallows, and Aunt Mara lets her hands rest idly in her lap – not stiff or straight along her sides – and so he scoots over the stone step and lets his shoulder press against hers, dropping his head against her neck like he did when he was nine and caught the Rodian Flu.

“It’ll be okay,” says Aunt Mara, Force presence warm and bright and blazing, never too gentle. “We’ll go see Nik when he wakes up. It’ll be okay.”

**

"Didn't Jaina ever teach you to knock?"

Nik tosses the rucksack that's slung over his shoulder onto the apartment floor, waving his keycard in the air.

"I have the key, big brother. Also, the Force. But that'd probably be cheating or something." His eyes are twinkling along with his presence, standing there in the old jacket he loves so much and a pair of old spacer boots, looking nothing at all like a Jedi. Jacen grins at him.

"Where's Jaya?"

"She's coming with Mom and Dad this afternoon - c'mon, Jace, like you didn't know that already. Loser. She hasn't shut up about it for the whole week."

"Guilty," says Jacen. "Just trying to make conversation."

Nik snorts and rolls his eyes, tucking his card into his back pocket. The adjacent window lets in the muffled sounds of ships and speeders whizzing by along the skylane, the lilac sky of Coruscant's third-highest level filtering in to illuminate the twins' apartment living room. Jacen pushes his datapad off of his lap to join the many flimsis and notes strewn across the floor, sitting up on the couch to grin at his younger brother. Nik's not even bothered to approach the area surrounding the couch, instead grabbing the tunic hanging from one of the chairs and lifting it into the air.

"Is Threepio gonna tell you this need to be steamed? 'Cause if he is, steam it now so we don't have to listen to Threepio's dulcet tones. Also, get up off the couch if you wanna make conversation. You've gotta get ready for changing the world."

"Ha-ha," says Jacen, rolling onto the floor and picking himself up. "You talk like I don't _know_ your room looks like it's been hit by five quasor canons."

" _Guilty_ ," Nik parrots back at him, his grin growing. Jacen's tunic hangs from his hand, only very slightly rumpled. 

"Also," says Jacen, "I'm not changing the world."

Nik's expression very suddenly softens; there's a solid blanket that settles over the usual spark of his brother's Force presence, and something about it eases the twittering that Jacen hadn't even noticed was taking place in his chest. Jacen bites his lip and looks down, scooping up a few of the strewn-about datapads and making his way over to the window. He feels Nik beside him before either of them says anything; he always was ridiculously quiet. 

(Jaya's been - for lack of a better term - yelling encouraging things at him over their Force bond for the whole morning. Jacen's not sure if it's been helping or making the slowly growing anxiety in his stomach worst, but she knows him - she _knows_ him. It's enough to make him remember to breathe.)

Out of the corner of his eye, Jacen sees Nik grin; slow and easy. "Remember when you said you were gonna save the whole galaxy?"

Jacen laughs softly. "A kajillion planets, huh? You still think I'm kooked?"

When Nik turns to him, there's something fierce and blazing in his blue eyes. He hugs Jacen with the same intensity, fingers gripping the back of Jacen's thin shirt.

"Always," says Nik, his presence morphing gold and bright and strong. "I always think you're kooked, dummy. Now get out of your Force-damned underwear and kick ass, Jasa."

**

( _And then: resolution.)_

(Does the desert ever truly relinquish its own?)

He’s walking through the back hall of the senate, outside of the auditorium, his tunic steamed and pressed and soft, the sound of applause and clamour and a thousand sentients trying to speak over each other roaring in his ears. His heart is loud and strong and smashing against his ribs like it’s trying to escape his chest, but inside – _inside_ , what’s really him, is _light_. Light and _floating_ like he can’t believe he just gave his speech in front of the entire New Republic Senate, like the bill that he’s been working so hard on isn’t barely a step away from becoming a reality, like maybe, maybe something is going to change.

Uncle Luke once said, _Slavery is a bit of a sore spot in our family_ , and right now Jacen is walking down the hallway with his ears ringing and his fingers numb and his chest alight. The walls around him are polished and stately and tall, but there is warmth and fire and sun in Jacen’s blood intermingled with the stardust Dad loves so much, and he can see Jaina’s smile and Nik’s wink and Mom’s twinkling eyes and Uncle Luke, soft and solid in the back of the hall.

He stops, feet catching on the polished floor.

In front of him, shimmering softly with blue light, is Grandfather.

Jacen can hear the muted clamour of the senate hall through the wall behind him, and _Grandfather_ –

Grandfather has tears in his eyes.

“I’m so proud of you,” he says. 

It’s soft and cracking and maybe, maybe Jacen is the only one who can hear it – but in that moment, he can imagine the entire galaxy is buoying him upwards, into the midst of the stars.

Jacen feels the Force swell up in his chest, so full of light, and he smiles at the ghost of Anakin Skywalker.

**Author's Note:**

> NOTES:  
> \- so, first thing's first: disclaimers!! Nursery Verse was originally inspired by ffnet/ao3 user irnan's swallows and amazons verse, but has since then grown into a thing of its own. i can never forget the origin, though, because swallows and amazons changed my life and also?? irnan is. the best. truly the best. 
> 
> \- elements of the eu, including the Thrawn Trilogy, Young/Junior Jedi Knights, and Tatooine Ghost were used for this fic. further than those, though, it's pretty much literally all my own characterization, my own plot, etc, and it's not _intended_ to be in line with old expanded universe canon (for those who are new to nursery verse)
> 
> \- the languages!!! alright, so, the language of Taal was first proposed to me by my lovely friend @ygrittebardots on tumblr.com (and here on ao3! go read her fics, yall), based on the premise that Shmi Skywalker was originally NOT from Tatooine but from another planet; her people had to escape, and landed on Tatooine, and she was ultimately enslaved. she's born and bred from the desert and keeps her language close to her chest, sharing it only with her sun, as a result. Taal is rooted in Hebrew, because both of us worked our way through a narrative of diaspora and loss of homeland and were like AH YES, and we're proposing that Taal explains Shmi's accent and the odd way Anakin pronounces some words. As for the other languages: Alderaani is Space Spanish, Corellis is taken pretty much entirely from the wookipedia page, and some of the words i've literally just made up. Anything that's rooted in a real life language, though, uses altered versions of the original words - ie, I know "tontho" and "aestriann" are not spelled that way in the original Spanish, but they _are_ in Alderaani.
> 
> \- much of Jacen's motivation and idealism comes from me grappling with my own thoughts regarding the oppression in the world and my own place within it, and ultimately my own purpose. this story is the product of a year's worth of self-examination and thought, and if anything that's in here resonates with you, I'm glad.
> 
> \- a special thanks to Indy (@actual-leia-organa on tumblr), my number one gal, who spent the whole year shamelessly encouraging me to actually finish this. you're the real mvp, Jones.
> 
> \- i've always been disappointed that the slavery narrative that the prequels set up was never explored despite its infinite potential. the image of Anakin's grandchildren metaphorically storming the castle and finishing his original dream of freeing the slaves has been something that I've been nurturing for far too long, and finally i wrote something about it. I really am very proud of this fic, despite the fact that the prose is perhaps not my best at all times, and ... I really hope you guys like it. Thank you so much for reading, and I hope you're having a brilliant day.


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